TH E 




Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and the Household Arts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts.] Tillage and Pasturage are the two "breasts of 
— Xenophon. the State. — 'Sully. 



FRANK. G. RUFFIN, Editor. 



F. G. RUFFIN & N. AUGUST, Prop'rs. 



Vol. XVII. 



RICHMOND, VA, AUGUST, 185' 

^vo -j.< *, Ji^l^ ^ : _.__ 



No. 8. 



Experience witli the Bought Fertilizers. 

Mt. Prospect, New Kent, > 
June 20, 1857. ] 

Mr. Editor — I have for some time been 
intending to give to you my sad experience 
in the bought fertilizers. 

In 1855 I bought 2 tons of bone dust, 
16 tons Peruvian guano, and $100 worth 
of Mexican guano. On one acre of land 
I put on 10 bushels of bone dust; on an- 
other just by the side of it I put 5 bushels 
bone dust and 100 pounds of Peruvian 
guano; and on another acre, the other 
side of the first, I put two hundred pounds 
of Peruvian guano, and on the rest of the 
field I used Peruvian guano, 200 pounds to 
the acre. 

1 commenced seeding this field in early 
purple straw wheat on the 27th Septem- 
ber 1855; on that day the 3 acres above 
spoken of were put in. The wheat was 

generally promising during the winter and! judging from the growth of corn at pies 
spring — but I did not see any marked dif-ient. Nor do { think that the field has 
ference in the three acres above spokenof; derived any advantage from any of the 
I do not think that any person could have j above manures. As to the Mexican gua-. 
rode in the field and told one from the' no, 1 would infinitely prefer while. I was 
other — there was no marked perceptible hauling, to carry out old ditch banks. The 
-iiflerence «lo designate one from the other, field is a clay soil, and wherever I have 

I thought at one time that I should makej used the ashes, and scrapings from the 
an average of 15 bushels to the acre, but houses, it acts remarkably well. 



as soon as it began to head out, it b£gan 
to tumble or fall down, as though turkeys 
or sheep had been running all through it. 
This, you know, was the effect of the fly, 
and the consequence of such early seed- 
ing, (27th Sept.) This field averaged 7 
bushels per acre. Where now was my 
profits ? 1 think I shall call on my highly 
esteemed friend, Mr. Willoughby Newton, 
to bear part of the loss, for it was he that 
gave me the guano fevev. During the 
month of August or September 1856, the 
army worm passed over the field aud com- 
pletely denuded it. I thought that I 
would try and get back something for what 
I had put on the land. I have this year 
(1857) put it in corn, and I have carefully 
watched to see if I could discover any 
improvement from the bone dust where I 
put 1,0 bushels to the acre, but I will defy 
the most astute optics to see any advant- 
age that it has over the adjoining acres, 



450 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



In 1856 I bought 16 or 17 tons of bone 
dust for my corn. This field is a light soil ; 
and unintentionally, by a mistake in lay- 
ing off the ground, I put 15 bushels of 
bone dust, or ground bones, to the acre, 
The land was also manured tolerably well 
with stable or. farm pen manure broadcast. 
I do not know the number of loads per 
acre. The growth of corn was a beautiful 
one, though it did not make anything in 
consequence of the drought. I seeded peas 
in the corn and had a very pretty growth 
of vine to turn under for wheat — this was 
done somewhere between the 10th and 
25ih of October, and seeded down in the 
early purple straw wheat. I do not now 
think it will average 12 bushels per acre. 
Now, sir, will that pay ? Do you think I 
can afford to use the fertilizers ?* 

I bought 300 bushels of peas this year, 
and I do not think they are equivalent to 

* Yes, sir. If you use them judiciously, and 
of the right kind, you can. We had just the 
same experience with Peruvian Guano last 
year on a piece of land sowed in Poland wheat ; 
7 bushels per acre on that land, was our crop. 
We ploughed up the very same land, bedded it 
higher, drained in better, sowed it in Mediter- 
ranean wheat the 20th September, and estimate 
the crop just severed from the ground, 18th to 
20th June, at 15 bushels per acre. Bad as last 
year was, we thiuk the straw alone— for manu- 
ring other land — was worth the cost of the gu- 
ano. Last year was bad for wheat in all lower 
Virginia; and guano will not ensure the crop 
against every thing. 

As to bones, we have tried them in chips — 
bone dust as they call it— and dissolved in sul- 
phuric acid, and they failed entirely. We are 
so confident, from all we hear, that they will 
fail in nine cases out of ten, unless for turnips, 
that we advise all our friends to try them on a 
small scale at first. 

The Mexican guano we have never tried. — 
We believe that by itself it is no bettor than 
bones, and in combination with Peruvian gua- 
no it may or may not answer. In some cases 
it has answered, in others, not. The balance 
cf testimony is against it. 

But when the land is not too rich for it, or 
too full of vegetable matter, such as the residu- 
um of clover decomposition, we think Peruvian 
guano Avill pay nine times in ten. 



Pern 



ips 



in our friend's case lime is wanting. 



more than 150 bushels of good peas — for 
I have to sow T double the quantity to get 
them thick enough. Is it customary to 
charge as much for indifferent peas as for 
good ? As the pea fallow is becoming so 
popular, it would be well for persons buy- 
ing peas to examine the quality. Peas 
that have been exposed to the weather a 
great deal, though they may look tolerably 
fair, will not germinate well ; they should 
look bright, thick and hard.* Are farmers 



* Did he not sow the peas too early? We 
have lately heard of two gentlemen who have 
lost heavily by sowing, according to some pub- 
lished directions, so early that their peas near- 
ly all perished from the cold weather of our 
very un propitious Spring. Of all crops, ex- 
cept cotton, it is most sensitive to cold. Our 
peas on 70 acres — all that we have yet sowed — 
24th June, are doing well ; and we have fifty 
acres yet to sow that will probably do bet- 
ter. On those peas — a bushel and a half per 
acre — we expect to spread 25 bushels of oys- 
ter shell lime ; and to sow with the wheat one 
hundred pounds of guano. Next Spring we 
shall sow clover on that land, and mean to have 
a stand. If we don't get our money back we 
shall be disappointed, but not disheartened. 

If our friend will try that plan we think we 
can guarantee his crop, at least that part of it 
grown on land not too rich for guano — i. e. land 
that is not now capable of 15 bushels of wheat 
per acre. If the fly appears, sow lime by hand, 
water-slaked oyster shell lime — (the shell for 
the purpose can be bought and stored against 
the demand for them) — at the rate of two bush- 
els per acre in all the month of November, or 
as soon as the fly comes ; and repeat the dose 
in the early Spring as soon as the wheat gets 
a good start. We do not say that the applica- 
tion mil destroy the fly ; but we say we think 
it will, at all events, unlike some " doctors' 
means," if it don't cure the disease it will not 
hurt the patient. 

The failure of his crop this Spring should 
not utterly discourage W. II. M. He is not the 
only sufferer by a great many. Light lands on 
Tidewater we hear are badly hurt generally, 
and in many cases much worse than his. And 
finally, let this console him. lie will not have 
to give his wheat away this year : the price 
will do something to make up the scanty yield. 
[Ed. So. Planter. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



451 



to be " food and raiment" for the rest of 
mankind ? 

I would say something to you about the 
Woopecker Saw Mill, except that Mr. 
Gresham has said it much better than I 
could say it. Every word of his I en- 
dorse, and I have already said too much. 
Yours, truly, 

W. H. M. 



4 ■» * €>->- 



Farm of A. B. Chadsey, of Wickford, E. I. 

Having published, a short time ago, an ac- 
count of market gardening near Norfolk City, 
we now give a statement of the same sort of 
cropping in Massachusetts. 

The nett profit of Mr. Chadsey's Farm is 
$1,252 27 ; his entire expenditure $1,481 04, 
or a profit of $41 74, and an expenditure of 
$49 36 per acre. 

The nett profit of the four farms near Nor- 
folk was $105 34, $73 52, $175 and $120 37 
per acre respectively. The expenditure per 
acre was respectively $65 91, $65, $125 and 
$96 32. 

The average expenditure was $88 05, some- 
thing less than double, and the average profit 
was $118 44, or very nearly three times as much 
as was made by Mr. Chadsey, who " is called 
one of the best farmers in Rhode Island/' We 
believe that a fair comparison of products 
would show a still larger balance in favour of 
Virginia, for the Yankee " consumes all his 
grain, hay and corn fodder with one-half of the 
roots on the farm," and then credits himself 
with " the cash value," whereas " grain, hay 
and corn fodder" are things which the Virgi- 
nian truckers cannot afford to make. They 
buy such articles ; and we presume do not 
charge what they eat, if of their own produc- 
tion. And yet many, not all, but many people 
of the free States pity Virginia from the bottom 
of their souls ! ! 

From the Ploughman. 

The town of Wickford is situated on the 
west side of Narragansett Bay, nearly op- 
posite the famous watering place, New- 
port. Mr. Chadsey is called one of the 
best farmers in the State of Rhode Island. 
His may be termed " a little farm well 
tilled." It consists of only 42 acres, 30 
of which are tillable. The surface of the 
farm is quite uneven, with here and there 
a gravelly knoll, some of which are sparse- 



ly wooded, and were never ploughed. — 
The soils are various : that in the valleys 
is sandy, resting on a retentive subsoil ; 
but the side hills are slightly gravelly with 
loam, and the knolls are porous. 

From an official account of Mr. Chad- 
sey's farm by his own pen we draw the 
following summary. He consumes all his 
grain, hay and corn fodder, with one-half 
of the roots on the farm. His stock usu- 
ally consists of a dozen head of cattle, and 
a pair of horses. The stock is all of the 
native breed, except one short-horned Dur- 
ham cow. The product of the cows is 
disposed of in milk and butter, the aggre- 
gate amount of five cows being $300 53. 
The milk is all taken at the house at five 
cents a quart. 

For corn and potatoes Mr. C. ploughs 
to the depth of eight inches, and for rye 
four or five inches ; for onions, beets and 
carrots twelve inches. 

He finds no use for the subsoil plough, 
but has used the Michigan double plough 
for three seasons, and has found it to be 
entirely satisfactory for all crops except 
seeding, for which the common single 
plough is used. 

Mr. C. makes use of a variety of ma- 
nures. In addition to those in most com- 
mon use, he employs fish composted the 
previous year with salt marsh sod and 
breach sand; night soil mixed with swamp 
muck and sand; hog pen made of sea- 
weed, soil and bog mud. For onions, 
beets and carrots, he" uses fish and night 
soil, together with ground bone and ashes; 
for corn and potatoes, the old manures ; 
and for rye, 500 lbs. ground bone .to the 
acre, spread on the furrow and | harrowed 
in w r ith the rye. 

He has more confidence in fish as ^.fer- 
tilizer for his region than anything except 
unleached ashes. Fish are landed on his 
shore and sold at one shilling per barrel, 
seven barrels of which composted will 
make an amount of manure in value equal 
to a cord of barn-yard, ^manure. The ma- 
nnrial qualities of the fish, are not totally 
exhaus'ecl until the third year. 

Mr. C. says " unleached ashes as a top- 
dressing for root crops and meadows is un- 
questionably the cheapest and most endu- 
ring of any fertilizer we use. The cost 
here is 15 cents per bushels taken at the 
houses where they are found about the 
village. Sea-weed costs five shillings a 



452 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



on, and I think is of little value when 
spread on the surface, or ploughed in be- 
fore composting, and is chiefly valuable 
for littering cattle, etc. I have used gua- 
no three years with fair results ; but think 
its cost too great in comparison with other 
manures for extensive use. I use ground 
bone which costs $20 per ton, and think 
it a valuable and durable fertilizer, and on 
account of the large per centage of phos- 
phate of lime which it contains is a very 
desirable manure for fields exhausted by 
long cultivation. I use a few bushels of 
common salt thrown at intervals into the 
barn cellar and over the barn-yard, finding 
it a fixer of volatile gasses and a destroyer 
of worms. I generally buy the " dirty 
salt" sweepings of cargoes at 25 to 30 cts 
a bushel." 

Mr. C. ploughs two or three years for 
tillage. The quantity of manure used to 
the acre is about ten cords. The field then 
goes down to rye, and remains ia grass 
three or four years. 

For butter he uses rock salt. Butter 
milk is extracted with a rolling-pin worked 
over the butter which is laid on a marble 
slab designed for that use; thus the warmth 
of the hand need not come in contact with 
the butter. The milk is set in tin pans 
about 1^ inches deep and placed on rack 
shelves in a dry cool cellar designed for 
that use, cemented on the bottom and wall 
aired. He uses a rotary thermometer 
churn. He thinks it more profitable to sell 
his milk than to convert it into butter and 
buttermilk. 

Mr. C. devotes much time to the raising 
of onions. In 1855 he raised a crop on 44 
rods of ground The soil was a sandy 
loam in a high state of cultivation, sur- 
rounded at high tide with salt water, and 
had been planted to onions for 14 years in 
succession. On the 11th of April the 
piece was manured with 21 hoise loads 
compost of fish manure composted the 
previous year with menhaden fish, salt 
marsh sod and beach sand. The 
quantity of manure was three and a half 
cords. Added to this he spread on the 
furrow twenty-two bushels of unleached 
ashes, and 115 pounds of ground bone and 
bushed them in. The onions were hoed 6 
times. When the tops became dry the 
onions were pulled and laid in rows, and 
left to cure in the sun four or five days, 
when the tops were cut off with sheep 



shears ; the onions were then stored in a 
dry, airy building. 

In the year 1855, Mr. C. raised 20£ tons 
of hay, 136 bushels of corn, 587 bushels 
of potatoes, 1057 do. onions, 91^ do. of 
beets, 235 do., carrots, 1200 pounds Acorn 
and Crookneck squashes, 155^ pounds of 
butter, 1269 pounds of pork, 1900 do. of 
beef, etc., the cash value of which was 
$2,733 31. 

Some of the items of expense for rais- 
ins: this crop was as follows : rent of farm 
$200, paid for labor $318 24, for manure 
$170 50, etc., and the entire expenses 
were $1,481 04. Thus he had a net profit 
including his own services of $1,252 27. 
And these results he reached not by con- 
jecture or at random, but from actual 
data. L. F. 



Mode of raising and feeding Ruta Baga 
and Beets to stock. 

Nomony Grove, Westmoreland, ) 
June 10th, 1857. \ 
To the Editor of the Southern Planter, 

Dear Sir. — I received your letter da- 
ted June 1st requesting me to give you 
my practice of raising and feeding stock 
beets and ruta baga turnips ; and in 
compliance therewith and of my promise 
to that effect, I now proceed, as it may 
be of present service to many who may 
be situated as we are, in a country nearly 
destitute of hay ; and where there is not 
one farmer in twenty that has a meadow; 
or ever thinks of raising clover for winter 
feeding. 

In the first place the land designed for 
raising those crops on, should be tolerably 
light, or not disposed to bake hard after 
heavy rains. If it is rich all the better* 
but should any one wishing to raise those 
crops not have a suitable piece of rich 
land, he need not despair of raising a 
good crop from poor land if he will ma- 
nure it well, with good manure well roted, 
or with peruvian guano; from one hun- 
dred and fifty to two hundred pounds of 
guano to the acre sown in the drill, is a 
sufficient quantity, as more will be apt to 
make the turnips rot in the fall. Tne land 
should be fallowed deep, and be well har- 
rowed, and, if cloddy, a heavy roller had 
better be used in Order to produce a fine 
tilth. When the time arrives for plant- 
ing, I lay the lana off in three foot rows, 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



45; 



sow the guano in the drill, lap the land on 
the guano, cleaning out the rows with the 
plough, then run a light one horse harrow 
on the top of the rows in order to pulver- 
ize the ground and bring them down 
lower, in order that the roots of the plants 
may soon enter and receive the fertilizer 
and start off vigorously. I use one of R 
Sinclairs' & Co. of Baltimore seed drills: 
one hand with one of those drills can 
plant as much land in a day as fifteen or 
twenty hands can plant by the hand : the 
drill only costs $8. After the plants are 
up and about two weeks old, I run a cul- 
tivator in the middle of the row, then 
follow and work the plants with the hoe ; 
in the course of two weeks more they 
will, if seasonable, be large enough to 
thin, and if there is moisture enough in 
the earth they can be drawn and trans- 
planted in all of the vacant hills which 
failed to come up ; work them when they 
require work as any other crop. The plants 
should stand, after thining, from six to 
eight inches apart. The fifteenth of July 
is early enough to plant ruta bagas. Stock 
beets should have been planted last month. 
I did not sow my ruta bagas last year 
until 7th of August on account of the ex- 
treme drought. I have sometimes first 
bedded the .land before sowing the guano, 
then split the beds, sow the guano, and 
run the light harrow over the beds and 
then plant. This plan I pursued last 
year, and made a fine crop. They should 
be taken up and put in cellars in the early 
part of December and should the weather 
be extremely cold, the best plan is to cover 
them with straw, as they are hard to cut 
when frozen. 

I commence feeding my hogs designed 
for pork on them, as soon as I put them 
up for fattening, one feed a day of tur- 
nips or beets and two feeds of corn will 
make them grow much faster and fatten 
quicker than if they are fed altogether on 
corn. But the best and cheapest way to 
fatten pork is to grind the corn, cut the 
roots, and boil them together until they 
are thoroughly cooked. I find it a great 
saving. To a sixty gallon caulderon I 
put some three or four bushels of cut 
roots — which I cut with a root cutter — one 
and half bushels of corn crushed in a 
11 Little Giant,'.' well cooked ; this will be 
enough to feed 25 or 30 hogs per day. I 
occasionally gave them some of the raw 



roots and sometimes corn, until within a 
week of the time I wish to kill them. Then 
I feed on corn or hominy alone. 

For feeding of milch cows I have found 
both of those roots most excellent. There 
is no food that can be given them that will 
make a cow give more milk. 

I also feed my work oxen on them, and 
find they do as well on turnips and wheat 
straw as any other food, and will perform 
as much labor and keep in as good order as 
if fed with fodder. Half bushel per bead 
with straw after the rows are cut is what 
I give at feeding time. I also find my 
horses and colts are very fond of them, 
and last winter I gave them one or t,vo 
large turnips a piece. I have them washed 
and throw the whole turnips in the man- 
ger, as there is not the danger of horses 
choking themselves as there is with cows. 
The ruta baga, when cooked for table use, 
should be first pealed, then sliced and 
stewed with some fat bacon, which makes 
them much better than when boiled in the 
whole turnip. 

At some future time I will inform you 
how I managed last year when short of 
hogs for killing, to get a lot of pigs nine 
months old, when killed, to make 
pork. 

At present our prospects for a good 
crop of wheat is very gloomy. There is 
more of the Joint worm in the wheat than 
we ever had before. There is in some 
crops the chinch bug, the fly has prevented 
much of the wheat from heading ; and in 
addition to that, there are vast quantities of 
the army worm now in the wheat ; they 
have in many places stripped the wheat of 
all the blades and are in some cases attack- 
ing the heads. The wheat is very late 



good 



and there is danger of rust, as the wheat 
is full of sap. 

Yours very respectfully, 

W. W. BROWN. 



Charlotte vs. Albemarle— Rough Creek vs. 
Ivy Creek. 

Having noticed in your last issue, a 
communication headed : "Albemarle To- 
bacco — Highest average this year — Ivy 
Creek Land Ahead," stating Mr. R. W. 
N. Noland had sold his crop of tobacco at 
an average of $15,09. We think old 
Charlotte can beat Albemarle and Rough 
Creek Ivy, as Mr. John D. Ford of this 



454 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



county, sold his crop at the following pri- 
ces : Three at $16% ; one $16; one 
$15f; one $15^; one $15; one $14: 
(Lugs) making an average of $15,71$. 

Subscriber. 



From the Valley Farmer. 

Lightning Bods. 

In a former number we stated that to Dr. 
Franklin belonged the honor of the discovery 
of the means of harmlessly drawing the elec- 
tricity from the clouds by metallic conductors, 
and although numerous pretended improve- 
ments have been made in modern times, upon 
the lightning rod, and for which patents have 
been granted, we are free to assert that no real 
improvement has ever been made upon the plan 
first suggested by Franklin. 

All metals are conductors of electricity, but 
some are better than others; copper is the best, 
its conducting power being many times greater 
than that of iron. Iron is subject to oxydation 
or rust, which impairs its conducting power, 
but being much cheaper than copper it is gen- 
erally used, and if made of proper size will an- 
swer the purpose. 

If a lightning rod or conductor of suitable 
size be properly put up it will generally con- 
vey the electricity from the cloud to the earth 
harmlessly, silently and invisibly, and although 
we hear of numerous instances of dwellings, 
churches and barns being struck with lightning 
though they have yet been provided with light- 
ning rods, this is generally owing to too small 
rods being used, or to some defect in the man- 
ner of putting them up. It might possibly oc- 
cur in one time in many thousands that a build- 
ing would be struck with lightning though 
properly provided with a conductor, where a 
cloud in a powerful storm should suddenly ap- 
proach, so fully charged with electricity and 
coming in so close contact with the rod that its 
conducting capacity would prove insufficient to 
convey the fluid fast enough to prevent an ex- 
plosion, but such instances are extremely rare. 

Notwithstanding the numerous experiments 
that have been made with electricity, the ques- 
tion still remains unsettled whether the con- 
ducting power of a rod is in proportion to its 
external surface or to the mass composing it — 
whether it travels only upon the surface or 
penetrates the pores of the metal. Franklin 
assumed that it passed through the body of the 
conducting material. Some modern philoso- 
phers have taken the opposite ground; among 
these are Professor Henry and others. The 
means by which they arrive at this conclusion 
have never been made public. This assump- 
tion, however, is in direct violation of estab- 
lished laws of artificial electricity. Assuming 
this ground, hollow tubes have been recom- 
mended as a substitute for solid rods, and very 
recently a patent has been granted for a new 



conductor made of a strip of sheet copper, 
twisted. Patents have also been granted for 
various forms of insulators for lightning con- 
ductors. These may be useful to the small 
conducting wire of a telegraph, over miles in 
extent, but as they are constructed and applied 
to lightning rods they may be regarded only in 
the light of " humbugs." It is well known to 
those more familiar with experimental elec- 
tricity than these pretended inventors, that in- 
sulation afforded to lightning conductors by 
the articles referred to are of no practical value, 
and as Arago very justly remarks, it is an "ex- 
cess of precaution not worth the cost." J. 
Murray, a prominent electrician of England, 
alleges that nine-tenths of the conductors in 
Great Britain are worse than useless, because 
of their faulty construction, and this propor- 
tion we believe, more than holds good in our 
own country. In our own native town, four 
buildings, within a short period, have been 
struck with lightning, all of which were provi- 
ded with patent lightning rods and insulators, 
and we hear of similar instances every year all 
over the country. 

If the rod be of proper size, and is continued 
with perfect joints to the ground, and the earth 
be sufficiently humid to afford a free passage to 
the electricity, no injurious effects are likely 
to ensue. But if the ground be dry it becomes 
a non-conductor and the electricity escapes 
with an explosion. If the continuity of the 
rod be broken, and the space between the sep- 
arated ends is not too great, the fluid will still 
pass, but sparks will be emitted at the break, 
as when you extend your hand near anybody 
or substance charged with artificial electricity. 
But if the passing cloud be powerfully charged, 
a defect in the joint will lead to an explosion, 
and most likely to disastrous consequences — 
We know of numerous instances where build- 
ings have been struck with lightning in conse- 
quence of defective joints in the rods. 

It is the nature of electricity or lightning to 
follow the best conductor. It will never leave 
a good one for a poor or less perfect one, there- 
fore if a lightning rod be of sufficient size and 
perfect in all its appointments, it may be ex- 
pected to convey the electricity from the clouds, 
not only silently but without any visible evi- 
dence of its passage to the ground. But should 
an explosion ever occur under such circum- 
stances, it would probably be the result of a 
peculiarly humid condition of the surrounding 
atmosphere, and of an unusually sudden and 
near approach of a cloud heavily charged with 
electricity; but these conditions may be re- 
garded of rare occurrence. The accidents from 
lightning then, that so frequently happen to 
buildings, provided with lightning rods, must 
result from their defective construction or ar- 
rangement. One great object with some of 
those who travel about the country, engaged in 
putting up lightning rods, is to do the work in 
the cheapest possible manner. Nor is it to be 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



455 



expected that many of these persons are as fa- 
miliar with the nature of the subject in which 
they are engaged as they should be. Many of 
the buildings throughout the country now pro- 
vided with these imperfect conductors are less 
safe than if they had none. This wonderful, 
mysterious agent — electricity, is not to be tam- 
pered with, and we would advise every farmer 
about to have conductors erected on his build- 
ings to see that all the important requisites are 
fulfilled. 

Hay and grain stacks, and barns filled with 
hay and grain recently cut are more liable to 
strokes of lightning than dwellings, owing to 
the gasses that are given off by these substan- 
ces in consequence of the slight degree of fer- 
mentation which they always undergo soon af- 
ter being harvested. 

We have thus briefly alluded to the nature 
and properties of electricity and the defects in 
lightning rods. We will now proceed to give 
the manner in which they should be made and 
put up. 

Lightning rods, if made of iron, may be 
round, and should never be less than three- 
quarters of an inch in diameter even for an or- 
dinary sized house. Larger houses should have 
a larger rod, or two or more of them. The 
lower end of the rod should terminate with a 
large piece of iron firmly secured to it, and 
extend into the ground in a direction from the 
wall of the house, so as to always be in the 
moist earth, not less than six feet, or if possi- 
ble into a well or the bottom of a cistern. If 
it is not convenient to extend the rod into the 
water, its lower end should be surrounded with 
one or two loads of pulverized charcoal. It is 
no doubt owing to the want of proper precau- 
tion in this respect, that buildings are some- 
times injured by lightning. The earth in our 
dry seasons is deprived of its moisture below 
the end of the rod, and it then becomes a poor 
conductor. 

The manner of pointing the rod also de- 
mands attention. A number of diiFerent points 
for lightning rods have been patented, but they 
are entitled to no higher regard than the pres- 
ent insulators. In France lightning conductors 
are made to terminate with a single point. In 
Germany, England and America, several are 
frequently added, composed of various mate- 
rials, but a rod terminating with a single point 
is as good as more, and the. taper of this should 
not exceed two and a half, or at most, three 
inches, on a rod three-quarters of an inch in 
diameter. To protect the point from rust it 
should be covered with a good cap of silver,' 
well soldered on — gold or platinum are better, 
however, should any one choose to employ ei- 
ther. 

Where the slender patent points are used 
they have been known to explode, or melt for 
want of sufficient size. 

The height to which a single rod should ex- 
tend above the main body of the building, to 



insure safety, is now generally admitted to be 
equal to half the distance to its remote point ; 
that is, to protect a barn sixty feet long, the 
rod rising from the centre of the roof, will re- 
quire to extend fifteen feet above the ridge. 

A fruitful source of disaster is known to 
arise from the uses of the small square rods, 
now so common in many parts of the country 
where the pieces are joined. Where a rod is 
too long to be welded, the best joint is that 
which gives the greatest surface to the two 
pieces in contact, and to secure this object they 
should be spliced with a broad, flat cap, four 
inches long, allowing each part, where they 
come together to spread something wider than 
the main body of the rod, the faces fitted 
smooth, and the joint firmly secured with a 
ring covering the point of each piece. 

In securing the rod to the building there is. 
no danger in using small iron staples. For it 
is true, as Dr. Franklin said, the lightning will 
never leave the rod — a large conductor — to fol- 
low them, but the staples more likely would 
serve to convey electricity from the building 
did it contain any, to the rod. But should it 
be preferred to have the rod a greater distance 
from the building, the be c t way to secure it, is 
with braces made of baked wood, and then 
well painted. Two of these are used together, 
forming a triangle, with their ends secured to 
the building twelve or fifteen inches apart, the 
other ends brought to a point at the distance 
it is desired to have the rod from the building, 
the rod secured in its place by an iron strap, 
screwed to the pieces. No insulators yet made 
will be more safe, or found to answer a better 
purpose than these braces. 

Training to Harness. 

I stated in my last article that a horse plant- 
ing his legs forward, and looking from side to 
side, yet doggedly standing still, was a pretty 
sure indication that he meant plunging, when 
induced or forced to move. It will generally 
be found to-be the case; but few rules or', 
symptoms are without exception. 

Now it is very probable that the novelty 
of finding himself attached to a carriage 
may occasion a similar proceeding on the part 
of the horse; and thus, finding himself (in 
Transatlantic term) " in a fix," he is afraid 
to move. 

Again, if he has not, as I recommended, 
been taught to bear the pressure of the collar 
on his shoulders, he feels himself held back 
by a something to which he is unaccustomed, 
so does not know that he really can move 
forward ; thus he may refuse to stir, and. 
yet be the best tempered and disposed of quad- 
rupeds. 

Teach him that by exertion he can move 
forward, notwithstanding the opposition, he 
will do S3 ; but, till he has been taught this, 
we have no cause for wonder, still less for an- 
ger or severity, on his refusing to do so. 



456 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



I am now speaking of a good tempered 
horse, who calls upon us by every feeling of 
humanity, judgment, and, indeed, our own in- 
terest, to treat him with gentleness, and to 
teach him with discretion. 

We will suppose such a horse to be put for 
the first time in double-harness, with a break- 
horse at his side, ready and willing to act as 
circumstances may require, or the breaksman 
direct. 

It is in no way to be expected that a horse 
thus circumstanced will, for some little time, 
face his collar, unless from vice he plunged, 
or tried, from that or fright, to run away ; but 
the animal we are speaking of we suppose to 
be perfectly good-tempered, but as perfectly 
ignorant of the business required of him — 
such a horse calls for the greatest care, that 
he may not become alarmed. 
' Even the break-horse must not be allowed to 
move on suddenly; for if he does, he will cause 
the pole-piece of his companion to give a sud- 
den snatch on his neck, which would very 
possibly produce resistance. Let the novice 
in harness be encouraged and patted. 

On the least indication that he is willing to 
advance, let the break-horse quietly take off 
the break, and let him alone, keep it in mo- 
tion without any attempt on the part of the 
driver or the man running at the side to make 
the other tighten his traces. It is quite 
enough if he moves on without alarm or re- 
sistance ; probably he will shortly touch the 
collar, and it is quite as probable that he will 
recoil from such touch. 

Some horses of course will come to taking a 
share in the draft of the carriage sooner than 
others ; but be the time longer or shorter, if 
good-tempered, the utmost caution must be 
preserved to use any means but those of vio- 
lence to induce him to do this. If he will go, 
he will draw; it may require some patience 
to bring this about, but finis coronal opus. 

We have above supposed we have only had 
ignorance to contend with in a horse; but 
there are others where we have sulkiness, will- 
fulness, or vice as opponents ; even in such 
case patience, artifice, and, as it may be termed, 
beating a horse at his own game, will usually 
succeed. 

Failing these, there is but one course left — 
we must, figuratively speaking, break him to 
harness or break his neck. 

I will here venture to obtrude a little bit of 
opinion — not to say advice — and an observa- 
tion or two bearing on the subject in hand, 
and what I have said four or five lines back. 

If a horse exhibits such evident aversion 
or vice when put to harness as to render ex- 
treme measures indispensable, would it not be 
more consistent with good feeling and good 
judgment not to persevere with him? If, in- 
deed, as in the case of the cart-horse, we can 
u;-*e him for no other purpose than that of 
draught, draw he must, be the consequences of 



making him do so what they may ; for, if de- 
terminedly vicious, we might as well break his 
neck as leave him a useless incumbrance to 
the earth. But with a horse that can be used 
for other purposes, the wisest plan would be 
to use him for those, or sell him to some one 
who would. 

I have said a good deal as regards coaxing 
and patting a horse. Some persons may think, 
or say, they could produce desired results 
quicker by other means ; let them try. 

i go on what hundreds of cases have taught 
mo, which is, never to have recourse to the 
foiiiter till the suaviter has failed. The effect 
produced by patting a horse is not the mere 
encouragement, but it diverts his attention 
while many necessary things are being done. 

If a horse is playfully inclined, while he is 
thinking of sranping at the man tickling him 
on the chest or under t ; ie arm, he is not think- 
ing of kicking. If a horse will play, depend 
on it, in nine cases in ten, he will go. It' he 
shows himself sensible to caresses, he is mostly 
insensible to vice. 

Some horses will, from sulkiness, pertina- 
ciously refuse to move. When we are con- 
vinced their conduct arises from such cause, 
we have but one resource: get a couple of 
men at the hind-wheels of the break, speak to 
the break-horse in terms he will understand, 
and let him pull the other off, in common 
phrase, " neck and heels." 

This will in many, perhaps, cause resist- 
ance, more or less ; he will, perhaps, struggle 
against it — at all events, while so struggling 
he cannot kick, or at least rarely does so. Af- 
ter a good tugging, along with the- collar on 
his neck, he mostly feels it pleasanter to go 
than to struggle. 

Some will lie down and refuse to rise. In 
a general way it is a bad plan, in such cases, 
to release him by undoing the pole-piece and 
traces : if you do, and he is a determined 
sulky one, he will lay down again when he 
thinks proper. 

Let the break-horse drag him by the collar. 
If you wish to render the doing so certain, 
pass a strong rope with a noose (that will not 
tighten by the draft) round his neck, just be- 
yond his head ; fasten this to the pole-hook; 
let the break move at a very slow walk, so as 
to give the culprit the opportunity of at least 
attempting to get on his legs ; so soon as he 
shows inclination to rise, stop the break, and 
let him be assisted ; but let him find the 
only result of lying down is the being dragged 
by the neck while in such a situation. 

I rarely found a horse, however sulky, re- 
peat the manoeuvre. Of course, such meas- 
ures are only to be resorted to in extreme 
cases. 

Running away, or at least attempting to 
do so, is another exploit sometimes put in prac- 
tice by horses in being broke to harness. 

If they take a breaksman by surprise in 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



45; 



single harness, this is sometimes a somewhat 
serious affair, inasmuch as the probability is 
he has his driving reins to the cheek of the 
bit the first time of putting a horse in ; but a 
practised breaksman so watches the move- 
ments of a horse under such circumstances, 
that he checks him before he has time to carry 
matters to this extremity. 

In double harness it matters little ; the 
break-horse, aided by the driver, will hold him, 
and he will soon find that the united efforts of 
both, to which is added the weight of the 
break, render the running away a serious ex- 
ertion, of which he will soon tire. 

Should he attempt it a second time, skid or 
tie up one of the hind-wheels, and let him run 
as fast as he pleases or can, and when dis- 
posed to relax his efforts, as he has, perhaps, 
ran half a mile to please himself, make him 
go another to please the breaksman. This 
shows him that running away is not to be 
practised with impunity. — [London Field. 



To What Free Labour Leads. 

In a paper read before an Institute in the 
city of New York, not long since, says the 
New Orleans Delta, by D. D. Deming, on the 
" Power of Cotton," the following statement 
occurs : 

Twenty-five year ago, Patrick's dollar would 
buy twice the amount of necessaries that it can 
now. What is the cause of this ? The price 
of food has gone up, and the value of white 
men has gone down. 

In 1831, the ratio of paupers in this State 
was 1 to 128. 

In 1841, the ratio of pauper in this Stat 
was 1 to 20. 

In 1851, the ratio of paupers in this State 
was 1 to 24. 

In 1856, the ratio of paupers in this State 
was 1 to 17. 

In twenty-five years the labouring class of 
New York has paid for the luxury of " Free- 
dom" double price for food, and an increased 
\ pauperism of over one hundred per cent. 
During all this time, the anti-slavery philoso- 
phers of that State have not ceased to jubilate 
over the more abundant wealth and prosperity 
of the Northern States, compared with the re- 
lative development of the South. Very well; 
but they fail to show that the labouring class 
of the South was put on a half allowance of 
food, and that, as a brilliant culmination of 
our prosperity, one in seventeen of them was 
thrown upon public charity as a pauper. They 
failed to show that the labour of the South 
could ever suffer destitution, while the capital 
which owned and employed it could command 
subsistence. Lastly, they failed to show that 
free labour may not starve while capital is 
swimming in boundless plenty and luxury, 
and that the co-existence of the greatest ag- 



gregate prosperity and the extreme destitution 
among the labouring class is an impossible 
condition in a free State. 

Different results flow necessarily from dif- 
ferent principles. The principle of " Freedom" 
— such as we find it in England and the North 
— has a necessary tendency to monopoly on 
the one hand, and to destitution on the other ; 
whereas, the principle of slavery, as it operates 
in the South, leads essentially to security of 
life and subsistence, and to an equable diffu- 
sion of comforts amongst the labouring class. 
The slaveholder owns his labour, and, there- 
fore, must, to promote his ow T n interest, feed 
and clothe it, and improve its skill and effi- 
ciency by securing the highest individual de- 
velopment of the labourer. But the non-slave- 
holding capitalist does not own his own labour, 
though it is to his interest to absorb all of its 
profits. The more abundant labour is, and the 
more productive it is, the less of its fruits is 
enjoyed by the labourer; and if he should 
happen to form a part of a surplusage of la- 
bour, then he is an industrial cypher on the 
negative side of the unit ; he counts less than 
nothing, and consequently must receive noth- 
ing — that is, he must starve ! He is a dead 
weight ; let him be lopped off, it will not pay 
capital any longer tfi keep the life in him. 
He has enjoyed "freedom;" voted for it, 
perhaps ; perchance fought for it ; pursued 
it with a single devotion — idolized it ; now let 
him be a martyr for it ! 

In Ireland, a few years ago, over half a 
million of victims performed the duty of 
martyrdom for " Freedom," by perishing on 
the public highways. In England the vota- 
ries performed the office less obtrusively , but the 
sacrifice in the aggregate was probably as 
large. In New York city, we are told that 
thirty thousand unfortunate sewing-women 
pendulate between starvation and shame. 
And yet we can hear no end to the story of 
the diabolical villanies of slavery, and the 
tender mercies and divine beauties of " Free- 
dom." 

Such are some of the inevitable results of 

the industrial chaos, called " Freedom," to 

establish the supremacy of which fanatics and 

pretended philanthropists would destroy the 

safe, orderly, and beneficient labour system of 

the South. It is a poor recommendation r ? & 

physician's prescription, that it _,' e ^ * ;1 the 

poisoned his own family. — <j(ennicoU, and 

vator. he vulgar preju- 

— — — •~*--^v,uted creations of 

Fall animal life, who 

-,.„ . _ t an object, and made 
Milkmg-P„ pra , n .J {IU) Farmert 

This is quite ; a }^^^ 

expect to thriv ,., 

and there arj^ y° un & woman llke corn 
who are not=2.i !t y? Because she ought 
milk and bu' ed. 



458 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



may not be an object to produce large 
quantities on farms near the capital or 
other large cities ; for butter is a more 
profitable article than cheese, when there 
is a near market for it while it is fresh. 

In the interior parts of New England, 
we incline to think that cheese pays bet- 
ter than firkin butter. We see at the 
present time, that eighteen cents a pound 
are demanded for what is called " new 
milk cheese." Now, as a pail of milk 
will make more than twice as many 
pounds of cheese as of butter, good but- 
ter ought to bring more than thirty-six 
cents a pound, unless the labour or the 
skill required to make cheese exceeds 
that which is required to make butter. 

Yet it is conceded, that small dairies 
cannot compete with large ones in the 
making of cheese; while butter may be 
made from a few cows to as much ad- 
vantage as from a dozen or twenty. 

Large farms, therefore, are the most 
suitable for the making of cheese, — and 
the question is, on large farms in the in- 
terior, whether cheese or butter is the 
most profitable article of manufacture. 

More skill is required to make cheese 
than to make butter, and it may be that 
the labour of making cheese, and tending 
them is greater than the labour of putting 
down butter in .firkins. But we think 
that farmers on a large scale, in the in- 
terior, can make more profit on good 
cheese than on firkin butter. 

The labour and attention required to 
make good butter or cheese, are impor- 
tant items in farming, and the business 
cannot well be entrusted to hirelings. 
Skill is required to milk well and drain 
out all that the udder contains. The last 
that is drawn from the cow is, by far, the 
richest portion ; therefore, the careless 
milker may leave a great part of the cream 
in Jhe udder without being aware of the 

harness or i 

I will liere vsy matter to teach an old 
opinion— not to low to milk a cow. The 
tion or two bcari Wrn t to all the children 
and what I have said le of learning . They 

If a horse exhibit. first plaC6j to treat 
or vice when put to hai for we knQW of 
trenie measures indispensai. r j a j. 

more consistent with good forced to P art 
judgment not to persevere w r it. 
deed, as in the case of the cary, they are 
itae him for no other purposood in a dis- 
draught, draw he must, be the cohject to be 



stripped when a known friend approaches. 
It is quite important to milk cows with 
rapidity. Let no one be permitted to sit 
and talk to a friend while drawing out the 
milk. Let the operator know that no talk- 
ing is to be permitted in the cow-yard, 
for milking and talking are distinct opera- 
tions, and must never be united. 

The milk must all be drawn out with 
rapidity, or a portion of the best of it is 
lost. In half a minute after commencing 
the process of drawing out the milk there 
is a rapid flow which must not be check- 
ed. If the cow is left for a minute or 
two when half the milk is drawn, the nat- 
ural flow is checked, the milk returns 
back into the ducts, and you must wait 
for a part of it till the next milking 
time. 

But by a repetition of this careless 
mode of milking, the quantity is gradually 
diminished, till "in a short time the cow is 
dry. Whereas, by attention to the milk- 
ing with rapidity, and drawing all from 
the udder, the cow will yield her milk 
freely for ten months after her time of 
calving. And we hold that all cows 
ought to go dry for two months before 
havinir another calf. 



From the Ploughman. 
Buckwheat and Corn. 

Mr. Editor. — I have learned from 
yourself and others, that corn seldom 
yields well after buckwheat. Now, as the 
wheat is not considered an exhauster of 
the soil, for many consecutive crops are 
obtained without manure, and without 
diminution of the harvest, it seems odd 
that corn cannot succeed, for a single 
year, on ground that has produced a good 
crop of buckwheat. Can you give us any 
reason for this case, which seems to be 
anomalous, since a change of plants is 
supposed to be beneficial to all soils ? 

Yours, &c, A. 

Concord, June 1. 

$^f> It is not easy to assign a reason 
wh}' corn will not yield well after buck- 
wheat; but so it is, and if any one boubts 
the fact, he can try and. see. 

Buckwheat, therefore, is not «a good 
rotation crop — though it will produce fif- 
teen to twenty bushels an acre, year alter 
year, on land of an ordinary quality. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



459 



Buckwheat will follow buckwheat, but 
corn will not follow it. We must humor 
all these whims, and profit by our own 
experience. Chemists have never told 
us why this wheat acts so, nor w r hy onions 
succeed better on onion ground than on 
a new soil that was never sucked by 
them. 

Indian corn is one of the crops that 
may be grown to advantage for forty 
years in succession in case a good quan- 
tity of barn-yard manure is applied. 
The same cannot be said of any other 
grain. There is a sweetness in the corn 
root which is communicated to the crop 
which follows it by means of the rotting 
of the roots that fill the ground when the 
corn is good. 

Potatoes on the contrary are not an en- 
riching crop, for not many of their roots 
are left in the ground, — and such as are 
left are rather of a poisonous nature and 
afford but poor food for the succeeding 
crop. 



From the Boston Cultivator. 

Superphosphate of Lime. 

'We are requested to publish an article 
written by Prof. Johnson, of Yale Col- 
lege, for The Homestead, in regard to 
superphosphate of lime. It appears that 
Mr. Dyer, Corresponding Secretary of the 
Connecticut State Agricultural Society, 
sent Prof. J. samples of Coe's and De 
Burg's manufacture, which the latter gen- 
tleman in his capacity of Chemist to the 
State Agricultural Society, subjected to 
analysis, and in regard to the results thus 
obtained x makes the following remarks : 

It would be well, as I have always sug- 
gested, for the State Agricultural Society 
to appoint a committee to decide for the 
Society what shall be its standard article, 
and what is an equitable price for it ; or, 
what amounts to the same, to determine 
what Connecticut farmers can afford to 
pay per pound for ammonia, for soluble and 
insoluble phosphoric acid, in manufactured 
manures. But as in default of any offi- 
cial standard you have made me your 
referee, I am of the opinion that you can 
demand .that the manufacturers come up 
to their own standard, especially, since 
(price considered) theirs is the highest 
practical one we have yet had. On this 



ground you are warranted in calling Coe's 
superphosphate a good saleable. article, and 
are also warranted in claiming a reduc- 
tion of price from De Burg. What de- 
duction ought to be made is a dfficult mat- 
ter to decide. The only way of getting 
an approximate idea of the relative worth 
of these two superphosphates, is to calcu- 
late their respective value, from the worth 
of their active and valuable ingredients. 
These ingredients are the ones I have al- 
ready named, and only those. The others 
are too small in quantify, or too trivial in 
value, to affect the calculation materially. 
What are the proper prices ? This is a 
question which has been much discussed 
by the most eminent Agricultural Chem- 
ists, and if we use for the present the 
highest prices that have been adopted in 
Germany, where bones and guano are 
much dearer than here, we are in favour 
of the manufacturers rather than of the 
farmers. 

Stceckhardt, the distinguished German 
agriculturist, who first estimated the value 
of manures in this way, has given in the 
first No. of his Agricultural Quarterly, for 
1857, a correct scale of prices for Ger- 
many. Below are his estimates, and also 
those of Way, chemist to the Royal Ag- 
ricultural College of England, and those 
which the writer adopted last year from 
the consideration of the cost of the raw 
materials in the Connecticut market : 

Stceckhardt. Way. Vcelcker. Johnson 



Actual ammonia, 


20 


12 


14 


16 


Potential ammonia, 


16 


12 


10 


16 


Insoluble phos. acid, 


5 


4 


5 


2 


Soluble phos. acid, 


12* 


m 


m 


5 



Let us calculate the value of the su- 
perphosphate in question, on the basis of 
Stceckhardt's prices and my analysis. For 
this purpose, we multiply the per centa^e 
of each ingredient by the price^ed in the 
where we find the value ofvennicott, and 
ent in 100 lbs., and tUie vulgar preju- 
twenty times is the valucuted creations of 
ing together the separrdl animal life, who 
the total value. t an object, and made 
-Prairie (III.) Farmer. 
Calculation of the ta Y* » > > *> 



Ammoma, =3'.y young woman like corn 

Ins. phos. acid, =18.. . ^ , , , 

_o vity ? Because she ought 
ed. 



Sol. pbos. acid 
Total value 



4G0 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Calculation of De Burg's. 

Ammonia. =1.41 pr. ct. x 20=28.8c x 20=$5 79 

Ins. phos.' acid, =17.61 il x 5=S8.4c x 20=17 68 
Sol. phos. acid, = .51 " x 12i=6.4cx20=l 28 



Total value. 



$24 72 



These " total values" give the relative 
worth of the fertilizers in question, and 
if we assume the fair selling price of 
Coe's to be $45, then by simple rule of 
three, De Burg's should sell at $30. 

38.56 : 45 : : 24.72 : 28.84 

Why will not our manufacturers make 
a good article ? There is not the slightest 
difficulty in making an article that shall 
contain 10 per cent, soluble phos. acid. 
10 " insoluble " 
3 " ammonia 

Such, in my opinion, ought to be the 
standard, and if we calculate its value by 
the same method we have employed for 
the other estimates, we have the follow- 
ing : 

Ammonia, 3 per ct. x 20 =60 x 20=$12 00 

Insoluble phos. acid, 10 " x 5 =50 x 20= 10 00 
Soluble phos. acid, 10 " x 122=1.25 x 20=25 00 



Total value, 



$47 00 



I have not the slightest doubt that such 
a fertilizer can be manufactured and sold 
profitably at $45 per ton. 
Yours, &c, 

SAMUEL W. JOHNSON. 



Nutritious Properties of Straw. 

Of late years straw has been used in 
England for feeding and fattening cattle, 
to a much greater extent than had been 
usual either in that or in this country. It 
is generally in the cut or chopped state, 
along with turnips or other roots, or with 
dissolved oil-cake, or molasses. With any 
of these additions, it is thought to answer 
very well as a substitute for hay. 
harness or ?nients of this kind we could 

I will h*ere vtive credence, for we have. 
opinion — not to .(being kept in very good 
tion or two bcarh., a whole winter, while 
and what I have said besides straw except 

If a horse exhibit- of bran night and 
or vice when put to haf i n the nutritious 
trcme measures indispens en fa corrobo . 



more consistent with goo 
judgment not to persevere 



v uorts which have 
deed, as in the case of the < in regard to the 
use him fur no other purp method of con- 
draught, draw he must, be thc\bran. 



M. Jos. Maitre, a distinguished agricul" 
turist and sheep-breeder, has succeeded' 
after long experimental trials, in convert- 
ing not only straw, but also hay, into a 
kind of bran or farina. The aliment which 
he produces, is said to be a complete sub- 
stitute for bran. It has been given to 
sheep and lambs, and they are said to 
consume it with good relish. If palatable 
and nutritious to sheep, it is likely to be 
so also to all graminivorous animals. 

It seems highly probable that grinding 
straw into a state of coarse meal or pow- 
der, should make it much more nutritious 
than it is in the natural condition. This 
is the usual consequence of a minute di- 
vision or comminution of all kinds of 
grain, as well as of other food. Straw 
converted into a kind of bran or coarse 
meal, must be much more easily mastica- 
ted and digested than in the natural state. 
If even the mere chopping of straw adds 
greatly to its nutritious powers, as is com- 
monly supposed, much more must such a 
complete comminution of its substance as 
is effected by the process referred to. The 
modus operandi, or manner in which bene- 
fit is secured, is common to both process- 
es, though to the one in greater degree 
than to the other. Both processes facili- 
tate the digestion of the straw in the sto- 
mach, and the extraction of whatever nu- 
triment is contained in it. 

Until M. Maitre shall supply us with 
some of his mills for grinding straw, Jet 
those who use it, either in the cut or un- 
cut state, be sure that they add to it or 
mix with it enough of meal, roots, bran or 
other nutritious matter, to make it equal 
to good hay, or a little better even, so far 
as the satisfying and keeping of his crea- 
tures in good condition are concerned. — 
Country Gentleman. 



Receipe for Scratches. — Take common bar 
lead and melt it, as you would to mould bullets; 
then take flour of sulphur and sprinkle on it 
until the lead is entirely burnt to a powder. 
It must then be pounded to a fine powder, and 
a sufficiency of hogs lard added to it, to make 
a good ointment of proper consistence. Now 
trim the hair from the diseased part, and wash 
clean with soap and warm water twice each day, 
and then rub this ointment on well with a corn- 
cob. This treatment will cure the worst case 
of scratches or foot evil in a few days. 

W. S. A. 
[Soil of (he South. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



461 



(iusere to Subscribers far South. 

Ed. Southern Planter — I have heard it 
suggested as a cause of much thieving on 
the part of negroes on many plantations 
or farms, that they are often driven to it 
by a want of sufficient wholesome food ; 
and have heard that in some of the South- 
ern States laws have been enacted regu- 
lating slave owners in this respect. If you 
or any of your correspondents can give 
practical information as to such laws, and 
the quantit}' of food deemed necessary, it 
will be gratefully received by 

A Slaveholder. 



Snakes. 

Snakes are much abused animals. As 
supposed types of the first deceiver, a sort 
of religious dread has ever attached to 
them, among Christian people ; and a few 
of the species being really venomous and 
others possessing imaginary attributes, far 
transcending the actual powers of any of 
the class, it is not very wonderful that all 
the sons and daughters of Eve should in- 
herit a hearty hatred of snakes. 

First — What are the venomous snakes ? 
In the United States we have the Rattle- 
snake, Copperheads and Moccasins. No 
others — and, in fact, there are no other 
poisonous reptiles in our country. 

The Moccasin is a southern species ; 
and so is the great Diamond Rattlesnake — 
the worst of the species. The Copperhead 
is a very bad snake; fortunately quite rare 
now- Robert Kennicott, who is collecting 
specimens in the region of Jonesboro' and 
Cairo, writes that he has just secured a 
genuine Copperhead in Illinois. The 
Banded Rattlesnake is also found in that 
region, and he is not to be despised; as his 
bite is truly dangerous, though rarety fatal 
to man. 

But the snake, about cures for w T hose 
bite so much has been said in this paper, 
is quite a different customer — not a very 
agreeable inmate of one's house, (though 
we have killed two found in ours,) and 
quite sufficiently venomous for the snake's 
own purpose. Still, that our prairie Rat- 
tlesnake has ever caused the death of a 
single human being — -whether "doctored" 
or not — we have yet to learn. 

And this brings us to the second ques- 
tion. Is there any specific antidote for 
snake poison ? Possibly. But who knows 



it? Not we ; and we studied medicine, 
practised medicine, and believed in medi- 
cine for nearly thirty years. 

Our first experience with snake bites 
was in the State of Mississippi, where 
children and especially careless negroes, 
were occasionally bitten by the ''ground 
rattlesnake" a small species of Crotolo- 
phorus, much like ours of the western 
prairies. We do not remember a case of 
bite from any other spiecies ; nor did we 
know of a snake-bite there or in the State 
of Louisiana, where we tarried several 
years. 

Since then, a residence of over twenty- 
one years in Illinois — with as extensive a 
country practice as any other physician — 
and in a region and during a time where 
and when rattlesnakes abounded, no death 
from their bite has ever come to our 
knowledge. That is, no death of man, 
woman, or child — a few small animals, 
usually bitten in the nose, have died; and 
deaths among large animals have been re- 
ported to us, but we never saw a case. Of 
human subjects we have treated many 
cases, and know many that had no treat- 
ment at all, or were treated in all ways ; 
and the result was always the same — all 
recovered ; though some suffered horribly 
for a little while. * * * 

We have but a word to add to this hasty 
dissertation on snakes. Let every farmer 
bear in mind that the whole tribe of ser- 
pents are insect eaters, and the benefac- 
tors of their human persecutors. Rip up 
the stomach of one, and you will find it 
stuffed with insects or enlarged by the bo- 
dies of meadow mice. Except in killing an 
occasional bird or frog, nearly all of our 
snakes are as useful to vegetation as they 
are harmless to mankind ; and it is not 
only an act of wicked barbarity, but a spe- 
cies of suicidal folly to destroy them. — 
Far better aid in determining the species 
and their dissemination, as urged in the 
circular issued by Robert Kennicott, and 
show that you are above the vulgar preju- 
dice against those persecuted creations of 
the Great Author of all animal life, who 
made nothing withd*ut an object, and made 
these for our good. — Prairie (///.) Farmer. 

Why is a pretty young woman like corn 
in time of scarcity ? Because she ought 
to be husbanded. 



462 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Okra. 

I look upon this as the manna of the 
South, and I am only surprised that it is 
not more generally cultivated, cooked and 
eaten. If okra is boiled to serve up whole, 
it should never be cooked in iron, but in 
brass or porcelain. Okra should have a 
good portion of salt in the water that it is 
boiled in; when done tender, drain off the 
water that it is boiled in ; and serve up 
with butter, pepper, &c. The French 
make a famous dish called gumbo, from 
okra. I don't know how many unmen- 
tionable things they put in it, but I will 
tell you how to make American gumbo, 
that my family are very fond of. For 
a large family, take a peck of okra, cut it 
into thin slices, put it into a pot of cold 
water and start it to boiling. Now take 
two tender chickens, cut them up, and 
with a hammer or mallet, macerate the 
flesh and bones until almost a jelly; add 
this to the pot of okra ; scald and peel a 
quart of full ripe tomatoes, and grate fine 
four years of tender green corn, which add 
to the mass; stir frequently, to prevent 
burning. Season with fresh butter, pepper 
and salt, and when nearly done, add a stalk 
of finely chopped celery, with a few sprigs 
of parsley and one onion ; continue stir- 
ring, and when the mass becomes ropey, 
and emits a grateful aromatic odor ; serve 
up. If you would Frenchify the dish, add, 
just before it is taken up, a gill of pure 
wine. 

Okra is very good fried. Cut into thin 
slices and fry in lard or butter. A sum- 
mer soup is not complete without okra. — 
And some of these days I will tell your 
readers how to dry it, so as to have it in 
winter soups. — Cotton Planter. 

The berry, when ripe, is used as Coffee. 



Eat Story. 
The following is communicated for the 
Country Gentleman by a correspondent : 

A miller in Bohemia who was sorely 
plagued by rats, adopted the following ex- 
pedient to get rid of th«m. Having caught 
half a score he confined them together 
without food, until their hunger rose to the 
omnivorous point, when they determined 
that one should be victimized rather than 
all should suffer; so they r«Mfied the de- 
cree, and the feeblest rat disappeared ! — 



The same process was continued until the 
dominant rat alone survived, whose taste 
had become thoroughly carnivorous. He 
kept the monster a-while to give the keen- 
est edge to his appetite, and then turned 
him loose in the mill. " Such a getting up 
stairs," as the miller immediatelv heard 
among the rats, assured him that his plan 
succeeded, and his Nimrod chased the 
vermin through all the highways and bye- 
ways of the building, till all disappeared. 



Plaster and Ammonia. 

VALUABLE EXPERIMENTS BY PROF. PORTER. 

One of the settled points in the theory 
and practice of soil culture is, that ammo- 
nia is a valuable fertilizer for all, or near- 
ly all growing plants. It is this substance 
that gives so high a value to Peruvian gu- 
ano, to urine, to horse manure, &c. Every 
one is acquainted with ammonia as it es- I 
capes from the stables, from chamber slops 
that have stood for a few hours, and from 
11 Hartshorn smelling bottles." It is also 
well known that this is a very volatile 
substance, which escapes into the air ra- 
pidly and is lost. To "fix" and retain 
the ammonia in manures is an important 
operation. This may be readily done by 
the addition of a little dilute acid, such as 
sulphuric acid, (oil of vitriol,) hydrochlo- 
ric acid, (called also muriatic acid, and 
spirits of sea salt.) The inconvenience of 
handling these acids, and their expense, 
has always been an objection to their gen- 
eral use. 

For several years past we have recom- 
mended adding to all kinds of animal ma- 
nures a frequent sprinkling of sulphate of 
lime, usually called gypsum, or plaster of 
Paris. This is a compound substance, 
made up of sulphuric acid and lime. — 
When brought in contact with substances 
containing ammonia, the ammonia takes 
the sulphuric acid away from the lime, and 
forms a new compound, called sulphate of 
ammonia, (sulphuric acid and ammonia,) 
which not being volatile, remains in the 
manure to be given up to plants. 

But it has been asserted by many that 
the dry plaster added to a manure heap, 
or to guano, will not unite with the escap- 
ing ammonia and retain it. This is an 
important point, and although we had set- 
tled the matter to our own satisfaction, by 
a number of experiments made three or 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



403 



four years since, last winter we requested 
Prof. John A. Porter, (Professor of Organ- 
ic Chemistry in Yale College,) to make 
such experiments as might be necessary 
to settle the question. We give his reply 
below. It will be observed that the mass 
of horse manure experimented upon, was 
placed in the same condition as a heap of 
stable manure, viz: a moist or fermenting 
portion below, with a dry portion over it. 
We will here repeat our oft-given advice, 
to always have at hand a barrel of plas- 
ter, and mix a small portion of it with 
every portion of animal manure made in 
the stables or yards. There is, in our opi- 
nion, no doubt as to the practical advan- 
tage of this course. 

To the Editor of the American Agriculturist : 

Sir — In reply to your inquiry, I would 
state that I sometimes since undertook to 
settle the conditions of the absorption of 
ammonia by sulphate of lime, or gypsum, 
by direct experiment. 

Before giving the result, let me premise, 
for the sake of clearness on what is to fol- 
low, that ammonia always escapes in com- 
pany with carbonic acid, in case of the 
fermentation of manures, and indeed in 
all cases of advanced decay or putrefac- 
tion. It is also in the form of carbonate 
of ammonia that it exists in the air. The 
point then to be decided is, the action of 
gypsum, or sulphate of lime, on carbonate 
of ammonia. 

As to the retentive power of gypsum to 
ammonia in the presence of abundant 
moisture, as for example, when mingled, 
with putrefying urine, or thrown upon 
night soil in a vault, there has never been a 
doubt. It may be remarked here that it 
is not, strictly speaking, the gypsum that 
fixes the ammonia, but the sulphuric acid 
which the gypsum contains. This acid 
unites with the ammonia, forming sulphate 
of ammonia, thus fixing and retaining the 
floating material by destroying its volabili- 
ty, and giving it the form of a permanent 
salt. The remaining elements of the sul- 
phate of lime and carbonate of ammonia, 
unite at the same time and form carbonate 
of lime. The whole action is simply an 
" exchange of partners," or what is called 
in chemical language, a double decompo- 
sition. 

But it is a singular fact that the partners 
change back again just as soon as they get 



dry. The new alliances do not stand the 
pressure of hard times. As soon as mois- 
ture is gone, the ammonia-leaves its new 
partner, and yoking itself again to the old 
one goes on its way as it started, in the 
form of carbonate of ammonb. The pro- 
duction of smelling salts by mixing sul- 
phate (or muriate) of ammonia and chalk, 
is a consequence of such a changing back 
to carbonate of ammonia (the volatile 
constituent of the smelling salts) and sul- 
phate (or muriate) of lime, which remains 
permanently in the phial. 

It may also be shown by a very simple 
experiment that dry gypsum will not re- 
tain carbonate of ammonia. If the pow- 
dered materials are mixed and moistened, 
and afterwards exposed for a few days to 
the air, it will be found that the carbonate 
has left the gypsum entirely, and escaped 
into the air. 

It would seem, then, at first sight, to be 
established that a covering of gypsum on 
a dry manure heap will not insure the 
rention of the ammonia. What seems dry, 
however, may not be, in reality, perfectly 
dry. It certainly is not, if fermentation 
is going on beneath it. For, in the first 
place, somewhat abundant moisture is es- 
sential to the process, and this moisture 
must escape with the products of fermen- 
tation. And again, the very process itself 
which produces ammonia out of the ele- 
ments of the fermenting substance, pro- 
duces water also out of the elements of 
the same material. For these two rea- 
sons, therefore, we may always be sure of 
a certain portion of moisture where fer- 
mentation is going on The practical ques- 
tion is, whether the moisture is in suffi- 
cient quantity. My experiments seems to 
answ T er this question in the affirmative. 

EXPERIMENTS. 

The experiments were made by cover- 
ing fermenting stable manure with a layer 
of the same material (stable manure) per- 
fectly dried over a fire, and then upon this 
a thin coating of ground gypsum or plas- 
ter. 

The fermentation was carried on in a 
covered pail, so arranged that all the gases 
and vapors rising from it could be drawn 
off and tested. Before covering with the 
plaster, there was an abundant flow of 
ammonia through the layer of dry manure, 
but the layer of plaster being added, no 
pai^ticle of ammonia escaped. 



464 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



The usual condition of a manure heap, 
even in hot weather, would be much more 
favorable to the retention of ammonia than 
in the experiment described. The heap 
would rarely if ever be dry to the depth 
of an inch. Even if this were the case it 
would seem evident from the above ex- 
periment that sufficient moisture would 
escape with the ammonia to insure its fix- 
ation b}' the plaster. But it is to be borne 
in mind that where the surface is compar- 
atively dry more plaster must be used. — 
The covering must be quite perfect, as in 
this case the plaster has little opportunity 
of diffusing itself by solution, as it does, 
to a considerable extent, in a moist heap 
Respectfully, 

John A. Porter. 

Mm Haven, April 29, 1857. 

Newspapers, the Postal service, &c. 

Much ignorance prevails among the un- 
initiated the prompt, safe and expeditious 
transmission of mailable matter. It is not 
at all unusual to find people entertaining 
an opinion that all articles are mailable, 
and that upon leaving them at a postoffice, 
their proper delivery at their destination 
is absolutely as certain as the rising of the 
sun. The writer knows something of mail 
service. Raised in an extensive newspa- 
per establishment, and having had an ex- 
perience of several years as Mail Agent, 
an opportunity has been afforded him of 
becoming thorough!}' acquainted with such 
matters. 

It is often the case that a newspaper 
subscriber entertains the idea that the ed- 
itor is the mailer of his own paper, and 
takes especial pains in directing it to this 
or that individual, who may suppose him- 
self entitled to more than ordinary con- 
sideration. The facl is, an editor has no- 
thing to do with the ordinary routine of 
mechanical or clerical duties in his office. 
He generally confines himself to his edi- 
torial room (or study), and is of necessity 
compelled to trust all business matters to 
persons in his employ. 

The mailing of a newspaper is no guar-; 
antee of its proper delivery. Newspapers ' 
have to run the risk of being mis-sent from; 
the City postoffice ; upon the railroads and' 
horse routes; and of proper care in the 
postoffices for which they are destined. — J 
In country postoffiees the negligence is 
often very great. Instances of this are] 



daily witnessed by postoffice agents. Fre- 
quently it is ascertained that a man re- 
garded as postmaster is only so nominally, 
leaving it in charge of persons feeling no 
interest in the matter, and caring nothing 
for the just performance of the duties per- 
taining to the office. 

Upon the arrival of the mail at a coun- 
try office, it is usual to find an assemblage 
of persons, and in many cases it is diffi- 
cult to say who is postmaster, so far as 
distribution of matter is concerned. Of- 
ten a man will read his neighbor's paper, 
and, if there be anything in it particularly 
interesting, and if he be an unprincipled 
man, will pocket it with little ceremony. 
For the missing paper the editor is de- 
nounced, of course. 

The postoffice establishment is the most 
extensive Department under our Govern- 
ment, and, from the vast number of per- 
sons in its employment, possibly possesses 
most influence ; but upon the whole there 
is no question as to the utter looseness ex- 
isting in the United States postal service. 
It is, in fact, inferior in nearly every re- 
spect to the English postoffice organiza- 
tion, upon which, if convenient, something 
mav hereafter be said. — The South. 



Corn Beer. . 

" Why do you not republish that receipt 
for making corn beer? It is an excellent 
drink for warm weather." This was the 
remark made to us the other day, and as 
we know the drink referred to is good, 
and cheap, (no small recommendation, 
now-a-days,) we concluded to put our 
readers in mind to have some ready for 
haying, and this is the way to make it: 

Take one pint of corn and boil it until 
it is a little soft, add to it a pint of molas- 
ses and one gallon of water ; shake them 
well together, and set it by the fire, and 
in twenty-four hours the beer will be ex- 
cellent. When all the beer in the jug is 
used, just add more molasses and water. 
The same corn will answer for six months, 
and the beer will be fit for use in 12 hours, 
by keeping the jug which contains it warm. 
In this way the whole ingredients used in 
making a gallon of beer will not cost over 
four cents, and it is better and more whole- 
some than cider. A little yeast added 
greatly forwards the working of the beer. 
[Maine Farmer. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



465 



For the Southern Planter. 

Extracts from a Farm Diary for the last 
Forty Years, to wit: 

1816. A frost in every month during the year. 
Crops of corn very short, and imperfectly ma- 
tured. 

1820. April 2d. Cold, and hailing until 8 
o'clock ; 8 o'clock, commenced snowing rap- 
idly, and continued until 12 o'clock. 3rd. 
Clear and intensely cold. Snow on a level 3 
inches deep. 4th. Snow on the ground, and 
horse-pond so frozen as to make it necessary 
to break the ice for the horses to get water. 
6th. This day snow and ice disappeared. 9th. 
Snow. 10th. Ice over pond. Apple trees in 
full bloom,, and produced a smart crop ; of 
fruit quality indifferent. 

1822. April 1st. Commenced planting corn. 
May 8th, Planted cotton seed. 14th. Garden 
peas ripe. 15th. Cherries ripe. June 19th. 
Commenced harvest. July 5th. Watermelons 
ripe. August 15th. Cotton commenced open- 
ing. Rain ; none from this time until the 
20th of September, except a very light shower. 
October 3rd. Commenced sowing wheat. 

1823. April 7th. Commenced planting corn. 
25th. Apple trees in full bloom. May 6th. A 
large frost. June 25th. Commenced harvest. 
No rain from 6th May until 19th June, which 
continued with slight intermission until the 
2d July. October 1st. Commenced sowing 
wheat. 

1824. April 1st. Commenced planting corn. 
8th. Planted cotton. June 24th. Commenced 
harvest. July 26th. Sowed turnip seed. Au- 
gust 26th. A rainy spell commenced and 
continued until the 28th of September, with 
the exception of four days ; they were cloudy. 
September 28th. Commenced sowing wheat. ' 

1825. March 28th. Commenced planting 
corn. April 2d. A snow upon an average 
three- inches deep, which continued on the 
ground until the 6th. 26th. Planted cotton. 
June. 20th. Commenced harvest. July 5th. 
Cotton in bloom, which opened on the 15th 
of August. 1,'th. Rain — the first since the 
22d July. The hotest summer within the re- 
collection of the oldest inhabitant. 

1825. August 19th. Three corn silks came 
out on this day ; the ears completely filled out 
on the 31st. Silks put out earlier in the sea- 
son ; will not mature as soon. 29th. Com- 
menced gathering fodder. September 28th. 
Commenced sowing wheat. 

1826. March 6th. Cherry tree in bloom. 
15th. Commenced planting corn. April 12th. 
Ground too much frozed to plough ; ice in 
water vessels in the house. 26th. Cut a stalk 
of asparagus that measured 2£ inches in cir- 
cumference — the product of seed sown spring 
of 1824. May 10th. Commenced weeding 
corn. June 10th. Harvest commenced in this 
neighbourhood. July 12th. Cotton in bloom. 

30 



[August 4th. Rain — first since the 30th June, 
except two light showers, barely enough to lay 

i the dust cleverly ; the ground has not been 

i thoroughly wet in the last eight months. 24th. 

I Cotton open. 27th. Cherry tree in bloom. 
October 16th. Commenced sowing wheat No- 
vember 20th. Cherry tree in bloom. 

1827. April 29th. Frost and snow; very 
cold. May 1st. Snow. 4th. Frost. 8th. 
Frost. 9th. Frost. 11th. Cherries ripe. 17th. 
A plentiful dish of garden peas ; they were 
ripe a week ago. June 2d. Frost. 22d. Sultry 
close weather at 12 o'clock ; rode out in the 
evening, and had to borrow an over-coat to 
return with, it having become so cold. 27th. 
Commenced harvest. July 18th. Cotton in 
bloom. September 3rd. Commenced pulling 
fodder. October 5th. Commenced sowing 
wheat. 

1828. February 17th. Peach trees in bloom. 
March 27th. Commenced planting corn. April 
14th. Snow. May 3d. Planted cotton. 7th, 
Cut a stalk of asparagus four inches in cir- 
cumference. 15th. I judge three-fourths of 
my wheat is in head ; a part of a fleece of 
wool measured fourteen inches. The winters 
of 1827 and 1828, the warmest within the re- 
collection of the oldest inhabitant. June 19th. 
Commenced harvest. 21st. Corn in tassel. 
October 1st. Commenced sowing wheat. De- 
cember 25th. Cherry tree in bloom. 

1829. April 6th. Commenced planting corn*. 
June 23rd. Commenced harvest. August 21st. 
Rain commenced on the 28th of July, and con- 
tinued every day, with the exception of three, 
to this time. 23rd. Rain ; 24th, rain ; 26th, 
rain; 27th, rain ; 28th, rain; and 29th, rain. 
31st. Commenced pulling fodder. October 6th. 
Commenced sowing wheat. 

1830. April 5th. Commenced planting corn. 
June 21st. Commenced harvest. July 1st. 
Corn in silk. September 29th. Commenced 
sowing wheat. December 4th. I have never 
seen so mild a November and December thus 
far. I have seen a plum of the second growth 
on the 3rd inst., to all appearances ripe ; to- 
matoes in abundance to-day ; second growth 
of Irish-potatoes ; strawberries on the 27th of 
October last, and raspberries now growing. 

1831. March 16th. A snow commenced on 
the 14th January last, a portion of which now 
remains. The snow was blown in banks by 
the wind, which continued during its fall to 
the height of fencing generally. Had it have 
fallen without wind, I imagine it would have 
averaged three feet in depth. The hardest 
spell of weather for six weeks, commencing a 
few days previous to the snow, that has ever 
been witnessed by the oldest inhabitant. 
April 5th. Commenced planting corn. May 
14th. Garden peas and strawberries ripe. June 
24th. Commenced harvest. July 4th. Corn in 
silk. 14th. Cotton in bloom. August 13th. 
A strange phenomenon ; the sun arose this 
morning assuming the colour of the moon, 



466 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



the shadow of which during the day, until 
5 o'clock in the evening,- was like unto that 
of the moon, though not so bright at that 
time ; it assumed a blue colour, such as the 
sky presents on a clear day, without the least 
shadow perceptible. A black round spot the 
size of a turkey's egg appeared on its disk, 
equi-distant from its centre, and its circle to 
the South. Sometimes its colour would be 
emerald, or green as sea water, without emit- 
ing a single beam. September 1st. Cotton 
open. October 3rd. Commenced sowing wheat. 

1832. April 2d. Commenced planting corn. 
May 3rd. Planted cotton. 12th. Garden peas 
and strawberries ripe. June 25th. Commenc- 
ed harvest. October 2d. Commenced sowing 
wheat. 

1833. April 1st. Commenced planting corn. 
25th. Garden peas in bloom. May 16th. A 
plentiful dish of garden peas and strawberries. 
June 17th. Commenced harvest. 25th. Roast- 
ing ears ripe. August 30th. Commenced gath- 
ering fodder. October 3d. Commenced sow- 
ing wheat. 

1834. March 26th. Commenced planting 
corn. June 24th. Commenced harvest. June 
26th. Corn in tassel. July 6th. Corn in silk, 
— ten days from tassel to silk. October 6th. 
Commenced sowing wheat. 

1835. April 2d. Commenced planting corn. 
October 12th. Commenced sowing wheat. 

1836. April 8th. Commenced planting corn. 
June 9th. First fair day and without rain since 
the 23rd of May. July 7th. Corn in silk. 
October 5th. Snow, — houses and land smartly 
covered. 

1837. April 5th. Snowed rapidly the greater 
part of the day ; and but for the ground being 
covered with water from a previous rain, it 
would have been six inches deep. 7th. Com- 
menced planting corn. 25th. Frost for several 
preceding nights, but the last equal to a win- 
ter one. 26th. Severe frost, and ground 
frozed. May 2d. Frost equal to a winter one. 
June 30th. First corn silk. July 3rd. A de- 
structive hail storm; corn materially injured. 
July 5th. Commenced harvest. October 6th. 
Commenced sowing wheat. 

1838. April 6th. Commenced planting corn. 
15th. Snow. 20th. Snow, — a winter's day. 
May 25th. Winter weather, — sitting by a large 
lire, and barely comfortable; spring uncom- 
monly backward. May 30th. A dish of gar- 
den peas. June 7th. Corn barely perceptible 
above the clods. 29th. Commenced harvest. 
30th. First corn tassel. July 12th. First corn 
silk ; from 1st June to this time, the warmest 
weather I have ever experienced, — the ther- 
mometer ranging generally in a cool passage 
irom 87 to 96°. 13th. A copious rain. Au- 
gust 1st, rain ; 11th, rain ; 28th, rain. Sep- 
tember 1st. The hotest summer ever experi- 
enced by any person living ; from the 1st of 
Juno to this time, the thermometer has gen- 
erally ranged from 85 to 96° in a cool passage. 



The coldest spring, say to the 1st June, ever 
experienced by the oldest inhabitant. 29th. 
A terrible gust ; tremendous wind, and the 
greatest fall of rain ever seen in this quarter ; 
fifteen mills broken, and incalculable damage 
to farms ; many bridges swept away. October 
11th. Commenced sowing wheat. 

1839. January 12th. Thermometer at 70°. 
April 8th. Commenced planting corn. May 
13th. A dish of garden peas. June 25th. 
First corn tassel. 28th. Commenced harvest ; 
seasonable up to the 15th July. 24th, rain; 
30th, rain ; 31st, rain ; August 2d, rain ; 8th, 
rain; 12th, rain ; 13th,'rain ; 16th, rain; 20th, 
rain ; 22d, rain ; 23rd, rain ; 24th, rain ; 25 th, 
rain ; 27th, rain ; 28th, rain ; 29th, rain ; 30th, 
rain, and gust; September 1st, rain; 4th, 
rain ; 6th, rain ; 8th, rain ; 9th, rain ; 10th, 
rain. September 12th. Frost,. 13th. Frost. 
October 7th. Commenced sowing wheat. De- 
cember 1st. Twelve hours of incessant rain, 
— perhaps more water on the earth than I ever 
saw, and continued to the 4th, when a greater 
fall of water took place. 

1840. January 2d. Mercury at 17°; 19th, 
at 4° ; 30th, at 58° : February 5th at 22° ; 6th, 
at 51°; 10th, at 77°; 11th, at 39°. 23rd. Li- 
lacks and honeysuckles in leaf, maples nearly 
so ; apricots nearly in bloom : peech buds 
much swolen, and Persian-iris in bloom. 29th. 
Thermometer hung on the sun side of the 
house 104° ; on a tin 80° ; in a cool passage 
74°. April 3rd. Commenced planting corn. 
28th. Ripe strawberries. May 3rd. Cherries 
ripe. 9th. Garden peas in abundance. 12th. 
Wheat in head. June 19th. Commenced har- 
vest. 22d. First corn tassel. August 25th. 
A second crop of strawberries ripe. October 
5th. Commenced sowing wheat. November 
18th. A snow fell, preceded by a heavy fall 
of rain, notwithstanding it lay on the earth 
one foot in depth ; had all the snow have lain, 
it would have been eighteen inches deep I 
judge. December 4th. A snow commenced 
this day, and continued until the 6th, with a 
tremendous wind the whole time, — the most 
severe one ever seen so early. 

1841. January 3rd. Mercury at 19°; 4th, 
atl7i°; 7th, at 59°; 12th, -at 15°; 17th, at 
28°, — snow storm through the day. 18th. 
Snow averaged twelve inches in depth. April 
1st. A blade of wheat twelve and a half inches 
high. 6th. Commenced planting corn. 12th. 
Snow three inches deep ; wheat blade two feet 
high. 16th. Frost. May 14th. A large frost. 
22d. Strawberries ripe ; wheat smartly in 
head. June 8th. Com barely perceptible above 
the clods; cold season, a"d bad stand. 11th. 
After the wetest season, from November last 
to the 28th of May, we are now visited with 
the most distressing drought ; though a very 
long interval of rain has not taken place, 
the earth is perhaps more dry than it was ever 
known to be at this season. Corn barely per- 
ceptible above the clods, and dying ; several 



THE SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 



467 



have discontinued working it; the wheat rot- 
ting from heat. The thermometer ranging 
daily at 91°. 12th. A fine rain, and tremend- 
ous wind, which destroyed many timber trees. 
14th. Rain. 19th. My corn field this day shows 
a green tinge ; corn too small to throw the 
earth to it. 25th. Commenced harvest, but 
had to desist from a fine shower of rain. July 
1st. First corn tassel. 7th. First corn silk — 
notwithstanding, the corn would not average 
more than the height of the knee. 7th. Rain, 
— a fine shower. 30th. Rain, fifteen days with- 
out, — a serious drought to the crops, which 
were nearly three weeks later than usual. Au- 
gust 1st. I do not think that more than one- 
fourth of my corn is in tassel, 5th, rain ; 8th, 
rain ; 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th, rain ; 26th, 
rain ; 27th, rain ; 30th, rain ; September 3rd, 
rain. October 1st, 4th, and 5th. Frost. 5th. 
Commenced sowing wheat. November 28th. 
Snow nine inches deep. 

1842. January 31st. The Mercury through 
this month has ranged from 60 to 65°, — the 
warmest January I have ever experienced. 
February 1st. Leather-winged bats, candle- 
flies, ague and fever worms, and bugs of dif- 
ferent kinds, seen on the 15th January last. 
Sap also flowing from forest trees where an in- 
cision had been made. 10th. Elder bushes, 
and blackberry bushes in leaf. 13th. The 
heaviest fall of rain I recollect ever to have 
seen, unless the fall on the 29th September, 
1838, exceeded it ; that fell more hastily, and 
broke many mills. March 2d. A blade of 
wheat nine inches in length. 11th. Wall flow- 
ers in bloom, and peach trees smartly in bloom 
on the 5th inst. April 1st. A blade of wheat 
twenty-two inches in length. 4th. Commenced 
planting corn. 14th. Strawberries ripe. May 
5th. Purple straw wheat smartly in head. 
12th. An Irish-potato the size of a hen's egg. 
28th. Last dish of strawberries. 29th. Corn 
very low. June 8th. Weather so cold I had 
to wear an over-coat. June 10th. Summer 
weather commenced yesterday, until which 
time it was unusually cold. 11th. Winter 
. weather, — sitting by large fires, and over-coats 
needed upon turning out. 12th. Mercury at 
55°; frost. 16th. Wheat of a deep yellow 
tinge, and purpling in many places ; this day 
the rust made its appearance in it, and spread 
perceptibly every hour, notwithstanding, no 
material injury. A rainy spell commenced 
on the 10th inst., and continued every day ex- 
cept two to the 26th- The forest and other 
trees are putting out a new foliage ; many 
trees and weeds have nearly half their num- 
ber new. 22d. Commenced" harvest. 24th. 
Corn tassels out. July 6th. Corn in silk. 22d. 
Forest trees still putting out new leaves. 24th. 
Cotton in bloom. August 24fch. A tremendous 
rain and gust through the day and night ; corn 
prostrate to the earth, the fodder torn from the 
stalks, and many large trees blown down. 29th. 
This is the first entirely fair day that I recol- 



lect to have seen since the 6th day of June 
last. September 1st. The last winter the mild- 
est I recollect to have seen. No ice, save two 
houses partly filled, in the country. The sum- 
mer just closed the coolest I have ever seen, 
except the summer of 1816. October 1st. An 
apple and plum tree in bloom. 10th. Com- 
menced sowing wheat. 20th. Whortleberries 
ripe, and eaten from the bush ; plum tree in 
bloom. November 8th. Rain, — the first since 
the 5th September last. November 30th. 
Snow. 

1843. January 15th. Cut down three cherry 
trees of very large size, the trunks of which 
rose several feet above the stumps, notwith- 
standing they bloomed as fully in this situa- 
tion as if they had stood ; this refutes the 
opinion that the sap descends to the roots in 
the winter. January 20th. Mercury 65° in 
the house ; 90° out doors. 21st. Mercury in 
the house 70°; out doors 97°; sitting without 
fire ; candle-flies. 29th. Sap rising from trees 
cut down. This has been the most pleasant 
January I have ever witnessed ; not a day in 
it to prevent agricultural pursuits. March 3rd. 
Mercury at 20?*. 23rd. Mercury at 15°. The 
month just closed, and the one preceding it, 
have been exceedingly inclement ; farming op- 
erations have been nearly suspended during 
the time. April 3rd. Snow. 18th. Commenc- 
ed planting corn. 23rd. Spring appears this 
day, after a most backward and gloonfy season, 
from the 1st of February last; peach trees are 
not in full bloom. May 15th. Wheat smartly 
in head. 21st. Strawberries ripe. 30th. Gar- 
den peas ripe. June 3rd. Up to this time we 
have had regular winter fires ; to-day suitable 
weather for the season ; fifty-five heads of 
wheat, the product of one grain ; average 
number of grains in each head, fifty-five, — 
making in all 3025 grains. There were sixty 
branches, five of the heads of which were de- 
stroyed by birds. July 3rd. Commenced har- 
vest ; yesterday mercury at 90°; to-day 71°. 
July 30th. A refreshing shower of rain, the 
first sufficient to wet the earth since the 14th 
of April ; at that time the earth was wet, and 
was kept in that condition by occasional light 
showers until the 7th inst. The crops of corn 
were exceedingly promising until that time, 
when all their props seemed knocked from 
under them ; many fields appeared as if 
they might be fired ; the corn was never out 
of roll until this day ; the tassels of a great 
portion of it come out and withered under the 
scorching influence of the sun, before the fa- 
rina was formed and matured, — barely a half 
crop made. August 13th. Rain continued 
from the 30th ultimo to this time, with the ex- 
ception of two or three days. September 4th. 
Commenced gathering fodder. 10th. From 
the 30th July to this time, the best season for 
vegetation I have ever seen. October 2d. Com- 
menced sowing wheat, 
j 1844. January 17th. Beech buds bursting. 



468 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



27th. Mercury at 12°. February 29th. Sowed 
garden peas. March 28th. Commenced plant- 
ing corn. April 16th. Garden peas in bloom ; 
a blade of wheat thirty-two and a half inches 
high. 22d. Many heads of wheat clear of 
their casements. May 3rd. Strawberries and 
garden peas ripe. June 5th. Corn sufficiently 
large to lay by ; the last winter more favoura- 
ble for the farming operations than any I have 
ever witnessed. 12th. First corn tassel in the 
field. 17th. Commenced harvest. 22d. First 
corn silk ; cherries of every variety ripe in 
May. July 16th. A. shower of rain, — the first 
since the 14th of June. August 5th. Corn in 
the field nearly dry enough to grind. 10th. 
Severe gust of wind, hail, and rain ; houses 
unroofed, and corn much damaged. 19th. 
Commenced gathering fodder. September 26th. 
Commenced seeding wheat. December 7th. 
Mercury at 65°. 

1845. January 16th. Mercury at 75°. Feb- 
ruar}'- 23rd. Peach trees nearly in bloom ; 
mercury at 69°. April 4th. Commenced plant- 
ing corn. 6th. Wheat twenty-eight and a half 
inches high; 9th. Ice in large quantities. 
27th. A ripe strawberry. May 5th. Rain, — 
first since the 14th March. The last winter 
was the mildest and dryest I have known. 
May 6th. Wheat getting in head. 31st, Frost. 
June 15th. First corn tassel. 17th. Commenc- 
ed harvest. October 12th. A rain of twenty- 
four hours continuance; the earth flooded with 
water. Less rain has fallen from last October 
to this time than I have ever noticed. 17th. 
A frost, like a snow: mercury 38°; ice. De- 
cember 21st. Mercury at 16°. 

1846. February 27th. Mercury at 19°. 
March 3rd. The most distressing spell of 
weather I have ever experienced closed this 
day. For ten days or more previous to the 
25th ultimo, the air seemed surcharged with 
snow ; on that day it snowed. 26th. Clear. 
27th. Commenced snowingagain, — raining and 
hailing, which continued to this time, forming 
alternative layers of snow and ice to the depth 
of twelve inches generally; in some places it 
was .drilled to the depth of five feet. Snow 
remained on the ground until the 8th April; 
mercuiy ranging from 18 to 30°. April 1st. 
'Commenced planting corn. 4th. Peech trees 
getting in hloom. May 6th. Ripe Strawber- 
ries. June 3rd. Corn from knee to waist high 
throughout the field; more forward than I 
have ever known It', 14th. Corn in tassel. 
15th. First day the sun has been seen since 
the 7th insl. ; rain to-day fell in torrent-;; a 
dense lug through ut the time. 20th. V":n- 
juenced harvest. 22d f Corn in silk. 26th. 
A silk oD a stalk of corn which showed a lobe 
of tassel riii-ec inches in length on the l-!th 
inst., twelve days from tassel to silk. August 
17th. Commenced gathering fodder, which was 
riper than any 1 have heretofore gathered from 
.the 25th to the last of the month. September 
29th. A frost that remained on the ground un- 



til the sun was an hour high. October 12th. 
Commenced sowing wheat. 

1847. January 1st. Mercury at 71°. 8th. 
Mercury at 25°. 22d. Mercury at 11°. April 
7th. Commenced planting corn. May 1st. 
Garden peas in bloom, and ripe on the 20th. 
9th. Rain, — the first since the 26th of March 
last. 14th. Wheat smartly in head. 20th. 
Strawberries ripe. Wheat remains in bloom 
about seven days, and ripens in three weeks 
after it diops its bloom. June 23rd. Com- 
menced harvest. 25th. First corn tassel ; a 
silk on the stalk on the 8th July. October 
15th. Commenced sowing wheat; frequent 
rains from the 20th June to this time; a heavy 
frost. December 26th. Mercury at 29°; 27th, 
at 26° ; 29th, at 69° ; 31st, at 64°. 

1848. January 1st. Mercury at 64°; a 
dense fog. 10th. Mercury at 24°. April 3rd. 
Commenced planting corn. 20th. Mercury ac 
38°, and ground frozen. 29th. Strawberries 
ripe. May 5th. A severe thunder storm, — 
wind, rain, and hail. 16th. Garden peas ripe. 
19th. Strawberries in abundance. June 6th. 
Corn from knee to shoulder high. 15th. Mer- 
cury at 88°. 16th. Mercury at 103°. 20th. 
First corn tassel. 21st. Commenced harvest. 
23rd. Mercury at 102°. 30th. A fine rain, 
which has relieved us of a drought of six weeks 
continuance. August 17th. Ripe strawberries. 
September 23rd. Frost ; mercury at 48°. Oc- 
tober 9th. Commenced sowing wheat. Decem- 
ber 17th. Mercury at 95°. 18th. Mercury 
at 82° 

1849. January 3rd. Mercury at 16°. From 
the commencement of the last fall to this time 
has been the warmest weather I have ever ex- 
perienced for the season ; mercury generally 
ranging from 60 to 95°. More pork lost than 
I have ever heard of in all my past life. 11th. 
Mercury at 9°; 14th, at 60°; 15th, at 04° ; 
19th, at 17°. From the 24th of February to 
the 30th of March, there have been only five 
days without rain ; the sun obscured by clouds 
and mist the whole time, with the above ex- 
ception. April 1st. Snow. 3rd. A heavy 
frost. 6th. Commenced planting corn. 15th. 
Mercury at 30° ; ice thick over water vessels. 
18th. Snow. 19th. Mercury at 32°. May 
12th. A smart frost. 15th. Frost. June 1st. 
March was unusually mild. April and May 
to this time have heen the most windy and 
cold months I have ever experienced ; trees 
budded out later than usual ; snow, frosts, and 
freezes came on, ano destroyed all the buds ; 
many trees and shrubs were killed. To-day 
weather suitable for the season ; corn appear- 
ing a little above the clods, and I believe is 
from three to four weeks later than usual. 
First garden peas and strawberries to-day. 
15th. From Thursday, the 7th, to this time, 
sun obscured by fog, resembling Indian sum- 
mer, — except that it was more damp. 21st 
Mercury at 107° ; 22d, at 122^; 23rd, at 115°. 
25th. Commenced harvest ; corn upon an av- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



409 



erage knee high. 27th. First corn tassel ; 
mercury at 103°. 28th. Mercury at 102°. 
29th. At 11 o'clock A. M., and 3 o'clock P. M., 
with the sun unobscured, a brilliant star seen. 
July 7th. First corn silk. July 8th. Rain, — 
the first to wet the earth since the 28th of 
May. 12th. Mercury at 103°. August 18th. 
Rain, — the first since the 30th ultimo. Octo- 
ber 5th. Commenced sowing wheat. 31st. 
Snow and hail. November 6th. Mercury at 
90°. 23rd. Mercury at 90°. December 1st. 
The most pleasant fall has this day ended I 
have ever experienced ; scarcely an unpleasant 
day during its continuance. Winter has com- 
menced with its characteristic weather, — hail 
and sleet. 9th. Rain and snow. 12th. Mer- 
cury at 25°. 13th. Snow. 1 6th. Rain; sun 
obscured for the last ten days. 

1850. January 1st. Mercury at 4°. 2d. 
Hail and rain. 3rd. Rain. 4th. Rain and 
snow. 12th. Mercury at 63°. 14th. Severe 
snows. 15th. Mercury at 18°. 28th. Mer- 
cury at 71° ; rain and snow from the 14th to 
this time ; nineteen days of rain and snow 
during this month, February 5th. Mercury 
at 11° ; frequent rains through the month, but 
so moderate as not to prevent farming opera- 
tions. March 5th. Strawberries in bloom. 
March 20th. Mercury at 28°. 25th. Mercury 
at 28£°; snow and ice. 28th. Mercury at 
282°; snow half leg deep, and snowing rap- 
idly. April 5th. Rain through the day, and 
snow at night. 6th. Snow ; mercury at 30°. 
10th. Rain and snow. 11th. Commenced 
planting corn ; snow and rain. 14th. Mer- 
cury at 35° ; ground smartly frozed, and ice 
pretty much through the day. 15th. Frost 
and ice, and flocks of snow birds. 16th. Frost. 
17th. A smart snow, and at 10 o'clock P. M., 
mercury at 35°. 18th. Mercury at 33°; ground 
so much frozed as to prevent plowing ; ice 
over ponds. 27th. Mercury at 90°. 30th. 
April has ended, the most unpleasant one I 
have ever experienced. May 2d. Frost. 5th. 
First weather suitable for the season. 12th. 
Frost. 18th. Wheat in head. 21st, Straw- 
berries ripe. »24th. Garden peas ripe ; fre- 
quent rains through the month. June 11th. 
Sitting by a smart fire ; not comfortable with- 
out. 15th. Summer weather commenced ; up 
to this time almost constant fires ; mercury at 
87° in a cool passage. 19th. Mercury at 104°. 
20th. Mercury at 112°. 28th, Commenced 
harvest. July 1st. Mercury at 120° ; first corn 
tassel. 5th. Mercury at 122°. 10th. First 
corn silk. 18th. A severe gust through the 
day ; excessive wind and rain ; trees blown 
down, and corn prostrate with. the earth. Sep- 
tember 21st. "Cold and dry to the 15th June ; 
from that time to the 1st September, very hot ; 
then fall commenced in reality. 26th. Mercury 
at 86° in a cool passage. October 1st. Frost. 
3rd. Mercury at 49°. 4th. Mercury at 46 2 °. 
7th. Mercury at423-; commenced sowing wheat, 
8th. Mercury at 35° ; a heavy frost. Novem- 



ber 2d. Mercury at 99° ; 3rd. Mercury at 97°. 
28th. Mercury at 70° in a cool passage. De- 
cember 13th. Mercury at 25°. For several 
summers last past, there has been very little 
thunder and lightening. 

1851. January 7th. Mercury at 84°; 19th, 
at 18°; 25th, at 81°; 27th, at 87°; 30th, at 
15° ; 31st, at 6° ; February 1st, at 14°. March 
31st. Commenced planting corn. April 5th. 
The last winter and spring to this time have 
been more mild than any I have recollection 
of. I think there has not been six days of 
cold weather during the season, one of which, 
however, was the coldest that has been since 
the 17th January, 1840. Dogwoods getting in 
bloom, — being one month earlier than last 
year. 14th. Rain and hail commenced on the 
morning of the 13th, and continued until this 
morning, when it snowed for several hours, — 
and would have lain to a considerable depth, 
but for. the water that was on the ground. 
21st. Heavy frost. 22d. Frost ; Irish-pota- 
toes killed. 23rd. Frost. 26th. Ripe straw- 
berries. May 2d. Frost, 3rd. Frost. 5th. 
Snow. 7th. Frost. 12th. Wheat commenced 
heading. 13th. Mercury at 110°. 19th. A 
plentiful dish of garden peas. June 6tK. Corn 
very promising. 18th. Frost. 21st. Com- 
menced harvest. 29th. First corn silk. July 
30th. A fine rain, — the first that has wet the 
earth since the 5th day of May last. August 
25th. From the 18th to this time, rain more 
or less every day. September 5th. Very sul- 
try weather; a thunder storm, with high wind 
and hail. October 8th. Commenced sowing 
wheat. December 14th. Mercury at 20° ; 16th, 
at 13° ; 17th, at 8° ; 18th, at 7£° ; 19th at 4°. 
22d, Snow eight inches deep. 24th. Mercury 
at 4°. 31st. Mercury at 52°, and a dense fog 
for four days. 

1852. January 1st. A bright pleasant day, 
— the first since the 14th of December. 2d. 
Snow and rain 6th. Snow. 8th. Mercury 
at 15°. 10th. Rain, hail, and snow. 12th. 
Mercury at 22°; 13th, at 10°; 14th, at 19°. 
18th. Rain, hail, and snow. 19th. Mercury 
at 12°; 20th, below zero; 21st, at 20°: 22d. 
at 19° ; 23rd, at 18° ; 24th, at 20° ; 25th, at 
29°; 26th, at 43°; 27th, at 28°; 28th, at 30°. 
29th. This day has ended the most distressing 
sleet I have ever witnessed, which com- 
menced on the 18th inst, ; broken bones and 
loss of life, to man and beast, have been the 
consequences of it. March 18th. Peach trees 
in bloom. April 7th. Commenced planting 
corn. 30th. Very frequent rains through this 
month. May 5th. Frost. 20th. A dish of 
garden peas, and strawberries on the 15th. 
June 16th. A severe storm. 17th. Corn from 
knee to waist high. 18th. It has been unu- 
sually cool throughout the spring, up to the 
16th inst., when the heat became oppressive; 
the mercury ranging at 82° in a cool passage. 
22d. Commenced harvest. June 30th. Re- 
peated rains and severe thunder storms through 



470 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



this month. July 1st. Great loss in wheat by 
repeated storms. 6th. First corn silk. 22d. 
Mercury at 115°. 30th. Mercury at 110°; 
frequent rains during the month. August 
29th. Eighteen days of rain, and twenty of 
most oppressive heat. September. Nothing of 
interest to note in this month. October 8th. 
Mercury at 105°- 11th. Commenced sowing- 
wheat; seasonable through the month. No- 
vember. Seasonable through the month. De- 
cember. Frequent rains through the month. 

1853. January 4th. Snow. 10th. Mercury 
at 74°. 17th. Mercury at 17°. 18th. Snow. 
24th. Snow. 27th. Mercury at 10°. 28th. 
Mercury at 1G°. February 2d. A thunder 
storm ; lightening struck in several places in 
Richmond, New York, and Baltimore about 
the same hour. 20th. Mercury at 19°. 22d. 
A thunder cloud. 24th. Mercury at 22°. 
March 15th. Mercury at 22° ; 25th. A tre- 
mendous storm. April 8th. A heavy frost, 
and ice. 11th. Commenced planting corn ; 
mercury at 42° ; yesterday at 76° ; 22d, at 
95°. 27th. Frost, May 28th. Peas in bloom 
fiat were sown on the 15th ultimo. May 
6th. Early purple straw wheat smartly in 
he id. 12th. Strawberries ripe. 14th. Frost 
20th. Mercury at 46°; the day before yester- 
day at 86° ; first dish of garden peas and 
strawberries. June 18th. Commenced har- 
vest. 22d. Summer commenced in earnest on 
the 18th, Mercury ranging from 95 to 115°. 
29th. Mercury 120°. 30th. First corn tassel; 
mercury at 124°. July 1st. Mercury at 124°. 
4th. Corn silks and cotton blooms. 9th. Mer- 
cury at 111 . 30th. Very seasonable gener- 
ally through the month ; snap beans from 
which seed snaps had been gathered, and the 
vines to all appearances dead, from late rains, 
have bloomed afresh, and produced a second 
crop, — of which we had an abundant dish to- 
day, as well as a large and excellent dish of 
sweet-potatoes. August 20th. From the 18th 
June to the 19th August, more oppressive 
heat and moisture than I have ever experi- 
enced in the same time. September 30th. 
Frost. October 4th. Commenced sowing wheat ; 
frost. 12th. A frost like snow. 13th. An- 
other. 14th and 15th. Frost. 24th. A snow. 
25th. Mercury at 33°; large frost: ground 
frozed ; ice over ponds ; — frost for the last four 
days. 31st. Mercury at 3H° ; frost like snow. 
November 14th. Mercury at 81° ; 10th, at 78° ; 
25th, at 28°. December" 24th. Mercury at 22°. 
28fch. Snow ; 30th, snow ; 31st, snow. 

1854. January 8th. Snow. 9th. Mercury 
at 16°; 10th, at 25°; 12th, at 66°; 21st, at 
68°; 24th, at 13°. February 3rd. Snow. 
March 19th. We have had the mildest weather 
I have ever experienced in March. Cherry, 
peach, pear, plum, and apricot trees have been 
in bloom ever since the 11th inst. ; to-day 
thick ice. 20th. Mercury at 29°. 22d. A 
heavy fall of snow. 26th. Ice through the 
day. 28th. Snow. 29th. Mercury at 22°. 



3.0th. Snow. April 3rd. Mercury at 27°. 6th. 
Commenced planting corn. 17th. Mercury 
at 33° ; ground covered with snow, and snow- 
ing rapidly. 19th. Mercury at 36°; a tre- 
mendous' frost. 28th. Mercury at 44° at mid- 
day. May 1st. Mercury at 39°. 12tb. Early 
purple straw wheat smartly in head. From 
the 19th of March to the 10th of May, winter 
weather; from the 10th, seasonable. 15th. 
A severe thunder storm and hail. 17th. First 
dish of peas and strawberries ; a thunder 
storm. June 19th. Commenced harvest. 26th. 
Corn in tassel. 27th. Mercury at 109°; 28th, 
at 109°; 29th, at 117°. July 4th. First corn 
silk; mercury at 110°»; 5th, at 115°; 7th, at 
110°; 19th, at 125°; 20th, at 123°; 21st, at 
125°. August 7th. A moderate rain ; and 
thus has ended seven weeks of the most op- 
pressive heat I have ever experienced. 12th. 
Excessive heat again commenced, and contin- 
ued to the 15th of September. 26th. Mercury 
at 120°. September 1st. Mercury at 111°; 
2d, at 112°; 3rd, at 119°; 4th, at 125°; 5th, 
at 111°; 6th, at 112°; 15th, at 100°; 16th, at 
85° ; 22d, at 46°. From the 15th of June to 
the 15th of September, the most oppressive 
heat and drought that have been for thirty- 
eight years. 27th. Mercury at 100°. October 
2d. Commenced sowing wheat, 6th, A smart 
frost, 9th. A pear tree with pears hanging 
on it; had a second bloom in September, more 
abundant than the spring bloom, from which 
the tree is now covered with a second growth 
of pears. 10th. Commenced sowing wheat, 
November 2d. A very dry and warm fall to 
this time. December 5th. Mercury at 26° ; 
9th, at 18° ; 20th, at 15°. 

1855. January 1st. Monday, the first day 
of the week, month, and year. 13th. Mer- 
cury at 02° ; 14th, at 22° ; 15th, at 25°. 16th. 
A dense fog and mist, and occasional rains 
from 22d December to the 14th inst. ; only two 
clear days in the time. 22d. A severe thun- 
der storm on the 21st ; mercury at 70° ; 23rd, 
at 20°. February 4th. Mercury at 20° ; 6th, 
at 17° ; 7th, at 10° ; 10th, at 12° ; 11th at 19° ; 
27th, at 15°; 28th, at 12°. March 13th. 
Unusually dark morning. 15th. A dense 
fog and thunder storm. 18th. Snow. 25th. 
Mercury at 28° ; 29th, at 24° ; April 3d, at 
30°. 4th. A heavy frost and thick ice. 8th. 
A frost like a snow. 10th. Thunder, hail, and 
snow. 12th. Commenced planting corn. 15th. 
A few blooms on May cherry, and peach trees, 
— being much later than usual. 18th. Mer- 
cury at 102°. The most cold and backward 
spring I have noticed. 19th. Mercury at 109°. 
May 7th. Early purple straw wheat com- 
menced heading. 9th. Mercury at 40°. 10th. 
Frost, 20th. First dish of strawberries. 23rd. 
First dish of peas. June 26th. Commenced 
harvest. 30th. Mercury at 109°. July 1st. 
Corn in tassel. 10th. Corn in silk. 12th. 
Mercury at 110° ; 16th, at 103°; 17th, at 120° ; 
18th, at 112°; 19th, at 115°; 20th, at 104°; 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



471 



23rd, at 105° ; 24th, at 95° j 25th, at 100° ; 
26th, at 111° ; 27th, at 110° ; 28th, at 105° ; 
29th, at 113° ; 30th, at 102° ; 31st, at 104° ; 
August 3rd, at 101° ; 4th, at 95° ; 8th, at 105°; 
13th, at 117° ; a delightful shower of rain, 
which revives our parched vegetation, but can- 
not compensate for the drought that preceded 
it. 16th. Mercury at 110° ; 19th, at 50° ; 25th, 
at 107° ; 26th, at 105°. September 10th and 
11th. Mercury at 115°. 12th, Mercury at 114°. 
October 8th. Commenced sowing wheat ; frost. 
November 4th. Mercury at 63° ; 16th, at 80°. 
December 12th. Mercury at 22°. 

1856. Jan. 1st. Snow. 4th. Mercury at 18°. 
5th. A severe snow storm ; snow eighteen inches 
deep. 7th. Mercury at 2°: 9th. Mercury at 
2° below zero ; 10th, at 5° below zero ; 11th, at 
6° above zero. 12th. Mercury at 19°; another 
severe snow storm on that day, which remain- 
ed of the 5th, — which was twelve inches deep, 
succeeded by hail and rain. 13th. Mercury 
at 30° ; 21st, at 17° ; 22d, at 5° ; 23rd, at 8° ; 
24th, i° below zero. 25th. Mercury at 28° ; 
26th, at 8° ; 27th, another snow ; 28th, mer- 
cury at 29°; snow and sleet; 29th, mercury at 
23° ; 30th, at 24° ; 31st, at 24° : February 1st, 
at 31°; 2d, at 34°; 3rd, at 13°; 4th, at 2°; 
5th, at 3° below zero ; 6th, at 4° above ; 7th, 
at 30° ; rain and sleet on snow ; 8th, at 33° ; 
9th, at 31°; snowing rapidly; 10th, at 22°; 
11th, at 31°; 12th, at 38°; snow; 13th, at 
10°, and snowing ; 14th, at 2° ; 15th, at 21° ; 
16th, at 36° ; 17th, at 27° ; 18th, at 20°; 19th, 
at 14° : 20th at 30° ; 21st, at 28° ; 22d, at 20° ; 
23rd, at 40 ; 24th, at 38° ; 25th, at 34° ;'26th, 
same; 27th, at 33°; 28th at 32° ; 29th, at 
37° ; March 1st, at 35° ; rain and snow ; 3rd, 
at 29° ; 4th, at 31° ; 6th, at 34° : 7th, at 21° ; 
8th, at 35° ; 9th, at 24° ; snow the 16th ; 10th, 
at 9° ; 11th, at 21° ; 12th, at 27° ; 13th, at 
31° ■ 14th, at 35°; 17th, snow; 18th, at 34°; 
snow ; 21st, at 41° ; 22d, at 39° ; 23rd, at 32° ; 
24th, at 36° ; 25th, at 35° ; 26th, at 32° ; 27th, 
at 34°; 19th, 20th, and 21st, snow; 28th, at 
29° ; 22d, snow ; 29th, at 29° ; 31st, at 23° ; 
snow. April 9th. Commenced planting corn. 
21st. A snow falling rapidly for nine hours. 
22d. Mercury at 35°; snow four inches in 
depth, — trees covered with it ; blooms on them 
not perceptible from the snow May 9th. 
Early purple straw wlieat smartly in head. 
13th. First ripe strawberries. May 30th. Mer- 
cury at 49° ; 31st, at 39° ; a smart frost. June 
4th. Mercury at 114°; 21st, at 108°. 23rd. 
Commenced harvest. 26th. Mercury at 110° : 
29th, at 112°. July 11th. First corn silk'. 
21st. Mercury at 60° ; 26th, at 107° ; 29th, at 
113°. August 4th. A heavy shower of rain, 
which wet the earth to a greater depth than 
any rain in the last seven months ; and thus 
has terminated the most serious drought that 
has occurred since 1806. Many persons are 
cutting down their growing corn for provender. 
Heat, for the last 'month, has been almost in- 
supportable. In 1806, there was no rain from 



May to the 20th of August, — the coldest Au- 
gust ever remembered. September 10th. Mer- 
cury at 111 . November 26th. Mercurv at 
72°. December 19th. Mercury at 15°; 22d, 
at 16° ; 23rd, at 6° ; whilst I have seen the 
mercury at 11° lower, I have never experienced 
as cold a day and night as the ones preceding 
and succeeding this day, owing to high wind 
and snowing. 24th. Mercury at 20°; 27th, 
at 27°. 

1857. January 7th. Mercury at 11 deg; 8th, 
at 8. deg; slight snow; 9th, at 6 deg; 10th, 
slight snow ; 12th, at 12 deg; 13th, at"18 deg ; 
14th, at 17 deg; 16th, at G'J deg; 17th, at 33 
deg; snow; 18th, at 3 deg; snowing through 
the day, — the most unpleasant one I have ever 
experienced. 19th. Mercury at 9 deg. in the 
morning; the last night the severest storm 
of wind and snow I have ever experienced in 
sixty years ; wind still continues, though a 
little abated in severity; at 12 o'clock again 
commenced and continued till night. 20th. 
Mercury at 1 deg ; we are now in the midst of 
the most distressing spell of weather I have 
ever witnessed ; the snow in drifts from six to 
eight feet high, and so compressed by the high 
wind that accompanied it, that stock frequently 
walk over them. Many stock covered in the 
snow, and great difficulty to get feed for them, 
and fire wood to prevent our freezing. All 
travel suspended. Had the snow have fallen 
without wind, it would have lain three feet 
deep. 21st. Mercury at 28 deg; 22d, at 5 
deg; 23rd, at 10 deg. below zero, — the coldest 
day in this latitude, I believe, ever witnessed. 
24th, at 1 deg; 25th, at 17 deg; 26th, at 4 
deg; 27th, at 32 deg; 28th, at 35 deg; 29th, 
at 30 deg ; 30th, at 26 deg; 31st, at 34 deg ; 
February 1st, at 31 deg; 2d, .at 26 deg; 3rd, 
at 18 deg; 4th, at 37 deg; 5th, at 47 deg; 
6th, at 50 deg ; 7th, at 49 deg ; 8th, at 5G deg : 
9th, at 28 deg; 10th, at 20 deg; llth, at 13 
deg; 12th, at 19 deg; 13th, at 34 deg; 14th, 
at "34 deg; 15th, at 44 deg; 16th, at 55 deg; 
17th, at 54 deg; 18th, at 50 deg. in the morn- 
ing; 94 deg. at 3 o'clock. March 2d. Mer- 
cuiry at 20 deg ; 3rd, at 11 deg; a tremendous 
North-west storm to this time. 4th. Mer- 
cury at 25 deg ; 5th, at 35 deg ; 8th at 21 deg ; 
9th, snow ; 10th, at 19 deg ; 12th, at 26 deg ; 
14th, snowed through the day and night: 
snow from six to eight inches in depth. April 
2d. Mercury at 26 deg ; 7th, at 26 deg. 13th. 
Rain, hail, and snow in abundance ; snow fell 
rapidly from an early hour in the day until in 
the night, — a portion, I think, sufficient to 
have lain on the earth six inches in. depth. 
14th. Mercury at 35 deg; snow on the ground. 
18th. Hail and rain. 20th. Severe snow 
storm ; mercury at 35 deg ; the most stormy 
day I have ever witnessed at this season. 21st. 
Pond covered with ice. 22d. Snow ; mercury 
at 33 deg ; snow continued until 1 o'clock. 
RICHARD ROUZEE. 

Essex County, June, 1857. 



472 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



From the Boston Courier. 

On the Sources of Nitrogen of Plants. 

The researches of experimental science 
have, for the last fifty years, been directed 
with increasing earnestness and success to the 
discovery of the physical and vital laws which 
lie at the foundation of a rational agriculture. 
The labours of Chaptal and Davy initiated this 
beneficent progress by presenting to the far- 
mer the first systematic exposition of the bear- 
ings of chemical and physiological laws on the 
art of husbandry. But it has been chiefly 
within the last twenty-five years, that the great 
problems of scientific agriculture have been 
investigated with the thoroughness and criti- 
cal nicety which can alone furnish conclusions 
of real value, either in practical husbandry 
or in the theory of vegetation. 

Among the labourers in this field, may be 
numbered some of the most eminent of the 
living cultivators of science, the Liebigs, Johns- 
tons, Mulders, and Boussingaults, who have 
found in these investigations ample employ- 
ment for their experimental ingenuity, their 
skill in analysis, and their powers of philoso- 
phical induction. It may indeed be said that 
in no department of physical research can we 
point to investigations more various, elaborate 
and critical than those which have been di- 
rected to the composition of plants and soils, 
and to the physical conditions which influ- 
ence or determine the development of vegeta- 
tion. 

That discoveries of great practical value 
have already rewarded these labours, is shown 
by the improved methods of agriculture to 
which they have led, and by the daily increas- 
ing interest with which the cultivators of the 
soil consult the suggestions, or apply the re- 
sults of experimental science. Indeed, so 
great was the enthusiasm with which some 
of the first fruits of these more modern re- 
searches were received, that in many cases in- 
genious speculations were confounded with 
positive results, and an exaggerated estimate 
was thus formed of what science had done in 
determining the relation of plants to the soil, 
and of the extent to which it was able to help 
the farmer in the practical routine of his la- 
bours. Thus, for a few years after the publi- 
cation of Liebig's invaluable treatises on the 
chemistry and physiology of agriculture, it 
seemed to be a very prevalent opinion among 
educated farmers that all the leading problems 
of the science of vegetation had been solved, 
that all the sources of the food of plants and 
the forms in which the nutrient matter was 
imbibed had been ascertained, and that now 
nothing more was needed to the success of 
husbandry, than, with the aid of chemical 
analysis in any given case, to make a faithful 
application of what had thus been made 
known. These extravagant expectations were 
not a little stimulated by a class of persons 



who, with a smattering of science, set them- 
selves up as a kind of land-doctors, profess- 
ing by a chemical diagnosis to discover the 
particular malady of each soil, and to furnish, 
in the shape of a compost, the appropriate 
remedy. Soon, however, it became apparent 
that the golden age of agriculture had not yet 
arrived, that the philosopher's stone of hus- 
bandry had not been found, and in the reac- 
tion of opinion which followed, there was rea- 
son to fear that the substantial discoveries of 
science would incur the discredit due to dog- 
matizing speculation and pretentious quack- 
ery. This feeling of discouragement, how- 
ever, no less unreasonable than the extrava- 
gant hopes which had preceded it, soon passed 
away, as the experience of cultivators taught 
them the solid worth of the facts and positive 
principles which science had disclosed. With 
sobered enthusiasm, they now watch the pro- 
gress of those researches by which the chem- 
ist and physiologist are aiming to solve the 
various scientific problems connected with 
their art ; and with a better appreciation of 
the complexity of these questions, they are 
content to await the necessarily slow develop- 
ment of positive results. 

Among the problems of agricultural science, 
none, certainly, has higher interest, either 
practically, or in a merely scientific aspect, 
than the origin of the nitrogen of plants. 
This element has long been known as an im- 
portant constituent of all the active animal 
structures, and as existing in certain parts 
and products of the vegetable economy. Al- 
though it makes up a less amount than either 
of the other principal ingredients of plants, 
its relation to the living activity of the organs 
is such as to render a due supply of it indis- 
pensable to growth. While starch, cellulose, 
or the substance of woody fibre, gum, sugar, 
oily matters, and many other of the more 
bulky proximate ingredients of plants are des- 
titute of this element, it has been shown to ex- 
ist in the cell walls and all the other structures 
which are active in the vital transformations 
proper to the organism. Indeed, wherever 
the living force is most active, there the pro- 
portion of nitrogen in the tissues is found to 
be greatest, as in the pumping extremities of 
the rootlets, in the organs of the flower and in 
the seed, as well as the embryo plant which 
it encloses. It would seem that this element, 
so abundant in animal structures, is more in- 
timately related to the phenomena of life than 
any other of the ingredients of organized 
matter, and that it has hence the power of 
giving even to the plant-tissues containing it 
a degree of animal activity. The important 
part which it plays in the economy of living 
nature is further shown by the fact that all 
the more nutritive as well as medicinal pro- 
ducts of vegetation contain nitrogen in marked 
proportion, and that it is only through the 
medium of plants that, directly or indirectly, 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



473 



it becomes accumulated in the various animal 
structures. 

Whence, then, is the nitrogen of plants de- 
rived ? This question has naturally claimed 
a large share of attention among the chemists 
and physiologists of the present age, and has 
been made the subject of elaborate researches 
within the last few years. In a general and 
vague way the answer to it may be easily given. 
We know that the organic manures present 
in or applied to the land, and certain mineral 
salts usually met with in soils, always contain 
nitrogen, and above all, that the atmosphere 
to the extent of four-fifths of its bulk, consists 
of this element. Is it not enough, then to 
say, that from some or all of these sources 
the living plant gathers the nitrogen which it 
requires ? Such a reply neither satisfies the 
demands of science nor the practical needs 
of agriculture. Until we know precisely un- 
der what forms and conditions the nitrogen 
is introduced, and learn the value, quantita- 
tively, of the several sources from which it is 
gathered by each tribe of plants, we can 
neither attain a true theory of vegetation, nor 
choose the best means for securing, by ma- 
nures or otherwise, the products of which the 
soil is capable. To be satisfied that the latter 
statement is true, we have only to consider 
what different systems of tillage we would em- 
ploy, according as we regarded the mineral 
salts of the soil, or its organic materials, or 
the atmosphere, as the immediate source from 
which the nitrogen was to be derived. 

Among the earliest attempts to assign the 
nitrogen of plants to a special origin was.the 
well-known theory of Liebig, which professed 
to trace this element almost wholly to the am- 
monia furnished by the atmosphere and by 
organic matters in the soil. It is true, that 
long before this the Swiss philosopher, Theo- 
dore Saussure, had called attention to the 
importance of ammonia in the economy of veg- 
etables, arguing from general considerations, 
that plants must assimilate their nitrogen 
from vegetable and animal products, and from 
the ammoniacal vapours in the atmosphere. 
This happy suggestion, however, remained un- 
improved, until the great German chemist be- 
fore named presented to the world that re- 
markable array of facts and inferences re- 
garding the relations of ammonia to the 
growth of plants, which more perhaps than 
any other of his fruitful researches has stimu- 
lated inquiry and conduced to improved meth- 
ods of tillage. 

Ammonia, it is well known, contains four- 
teen parts out of seventeen, by weight, of ni- 
trogen, the remaining three consisting of hy- 
drugen, and is, therefore, richly provided with 
the element so needed by plants. That they 
have the power to appropriate it from this 
6ource, both when the ammonia is applied as 
a gas mingled with the air, and when furnish- 
ed by the soil in a state of solution to the roots, 



has been amply shown by experiment, and is 
now accepted as a fact. By way of illustrat- 
ing its influence on vegetable growth, we may 
here cite a few of the results of an elaborate 
investigation conducted some years since by 
M. Ville, and reported by him to the French 
Academy of Sciences. In a soil composed of 
pure sand, carefully freed from all traces of 
nitrogen, and placed in a porous vessel of like 
pure material, he sowed a number of seed, 
and placing the vessel under a bell glass in a 
shallow dish of distilled water to supply the 
requisite moisture to the sand, he connected 
with the sand an apparatus for replenishing 
the interior with fresh air at measured rates. 
In some of his experiments he used the air in 
its ordinary state ; in others with the addition 
of more or less gaseous ammonia. After the 
plant had been sufficiently developed, it was 
removed and submitted to a careful analysis. 
From this, as compared with the known com- 
position of the seed employed, he ascertained 
the amount of nitrogen gained by it in the 
process of growth. These experiments led M. 
Ville to conclude — 

First. That one ten-thousandth part of am- 
monia increases in a remarkable degree the 
activity of vegetation. 

Second. That the crop under these condi- 
tions contains in a given weight much more 
nitrogen than is to be found in the same plants 
reared in common air. 

Clearly as these results demonstrate the ca- 
pacity of plants to appropriate the nitrogen of 
ammonia, they by no means authorize the in- 
ference that ammonia is the only or chief source 
from which they supply themselves with this 
element, nor, as we shall presently see, is such 
the conclusion of Mr. Ville, or of other recent 
experimenters. 

It has long been known that several of the 
saline substances called nitrates are present in 
marked proportion in organic manures, and to 
a small and variable extent in most soils. Of 
these salts the characteristic ingredient is ni- 
tric acid, a substance which contains fourteen 
parts in fifty-four by weight of nitrogen, the 
remainder being composed of oxygen. It has, 
moreover, been ascertained that this acid is 
formed in the atmosphere through an electri- 
cal influence, which brings a portion of the 
nitrogen and oxygen of the air into chemical 
combination, and that it is then absorbed and 
brought to the earth by the descending rain. 
Here, then, is another source from which 
plants might naturally be supposed to draw a 
part of the nitrogen which they require. Al- 
though chemists have disagreed as to the ex- 
ten of the supply obtained from this quarter, 
there appears to be no doubt either as to the 
ability of plants to assimilate the nitrogen 
when presented in this form, or of the fact of 
their actually appropriating it from the ni- 
trates. The late Prof. Johnston of Durham, 
whose labours as an agricultural chemist have 



474 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



been eminently useful, after devoting much 
careful research to this subject, maintained 
with great force of evidence and ingenuity of 
argument, that nitric acid or the nitrates, are 
largely instrumental in supplying nitrogen to 
plants. Although, in opposing the attempt 
of Liebig to secure for ammonia a monopoly 
of the office in question, this philosopher was, 
perhaps, disposed to uncj^r-value the service it 
renders to the vegetable world, and to mag- 
nify the claims of his favourite candidate, the 
nitric acid, still there is ample proof in the 
appropriation of nitric acid from the air and 
from manures by growing plants, that this 
material is one of the usual and most im- 
portant sources from which they are sup- 
plied. 

As both the ammonia and the nitric acid of 
the atmosphere are present in variable and mi- 
nute quantities, very delicate observations are 
required for determining their amount at any 
given time or place, and these observations 
must be greatly multiplied when we aim at 
finding the average proportion in which the} 7 
are mingled with the air. In the earlier re- 
searches on this subject, the quantity of am- 
monia present in the atmosphere was generally 
and sometimes grossly over-estimated, a result 
not a little confirmatory for the time of the 
theory which referred the nitrogen of plants 
chiefly or wholly to this source. Recently M. 
Ville, from a series of most careful experi- 
ments, continued for two } r ears, has ascer- 
tained that in Alsace, where he operated, the 
atmosphere contains one part by weight of 
ammonia for every fifty-four and a half mil- 
lions of parts of air, and on comparing the 
amount of ammonia and of nitric acid con- 
veyed to the soil by the rain, and both, of 
course, absorbed from the atmosphere, he finds 
their proportion such as to correspond to 
nearly equal quantities of nitrogen, that of the 
nitric acid being a little in excess. 

From this result it would seem that as re- 
gards the extent of the natural supply, the ni- 
tric acid, or nitrates, may at least claim to be 
on an equal footing with ammonia as sources 
of food and vital activity to plants. A late 
observation of the same chemist goes far to 
prove that the nitrogen of nitrates is appro- 
priated even more readily than that of am- 
monia. He planted the seed of colza, wheat, 
&c, in separate vessels in a soil of pure sand, 
prepared as in the experiments formerly de- 
scribed, and to one set of each of the plantings' 
he added muriate of ammonia, (sal ammoniac,) 
and to the other nitrate of potash, (saltpetre,) 
in such quantities as to correspond to equal 
weights -of nitrogen. On gathering the plants 
when somewhat developed and submitting 
them to analysis, he found that those which 
had been manured by the nitrate had assimi- 
lated a greater weight of nitrogen than the 
plants to which the salt of ammonia had been 
applied, the difference in the case of the colza 



being as two to one, and in that of the wheat, 
although less, still very considerable. 

While admitting the value of the nitrates 
as a source of nitrogen, it has been suggested 
by some of the disciples of the ammonia 
theory, that by certain chemical actions in the 
soil, the nitric acid may be transformed into 
ammonia, a change in their view necessary to 
place the nitrogen within reach of the plant. 
But the experiment above cited is at war with 
such a supposition, since it shows that a nitric 
acid compound is more efficacious than one 
containing the ammonia ready formed. What- 
ever may be the relative share, however, of 
the nitrates and ammonia in providing nitro- 
gen for particular plants, or for the vegetable 
world at large, all must admit tljat the fact of 
their both participating in this function is one 
of the most important truths which agri- 
culture owes to the researches of modern 
science. 

But the nitrogen question does not termi- 
nate here. Another claimant, long suspected 
of having an agency in this function, has late- 
ly proved its title to a share of the purveying 
process. We refer now to the atmosphere it- 
self, which, as already stated, is composed to 
the extent of four-fifths of its bulk of this vi- 
tal element. It may seem strange that the 
direct appropriation of atmospheric nitrogen 
by growing plants was not completely demon- 
strated at .an early stage of these inquiries, 
but the remarkable inertness, chemically speak- 
ing, of this element as it exists in the air, and 
the known activity of ammonia and nitric 
acitf, very naturally drew attention to the ef- 
fects of the latter substances rather than to 
the air, while the peculiar difficulty of its in- 
vestigation delayed its extension in a direc- 
tion which seemed so little promising of posi- 
tive results. 

This problem first experimentally studied 
by Boussingault, has lately attracted new at- 
tention among chemists, and has been inves- 
tigated by M. Ville in particular, in a series 
of researches, remarkable for their extent and 
for the completeness with which they treat the 
important collateral inquiries. The leading 
conclusion which he draws from them is sim- 
ply this, that growing plants are indebted to 
the atmosphere directly for a part of tfye nitro- 
gen which they assimilate. Giving due weight 
to th.e criticisms with which a portion of these 
interesting researches have been received, 
we have yet been unable to resist the force of 
the experimental demonstrations which M. 
Ville has accumulated, and regarding his main 
conclusion as established, we gladly greet it 
as one of the most important additions yet 
made to the science of vegetation. A few de- 
tails may be of interest, as showing the mode 
in which these experiments were conducted, 
and the author's method of interpreting 
them. 

After making trial of various plants, M. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



475 



Ville found that wheat and tobacco were com 
paratively little affected by the somewhat ab- 
normal conditions in which the experiments 
placed them, and afforded, therefore, the most 
uniform and satisfactory results. In one se- 
ries of his experiments, the seed planted in 
pure sand were supplied during germination 
and growth with a measured quantity of air and 
water containing ammonia. The plants on 
analysis were found to contain 1.188 of nitro- 
gen more than was originally contained in the 
seed ; in other words, they had gained just so 
much of this element in virtue of their growth. 
On the other hand, the nitrogen of the am- 
monia applied to them amounted only to 0.025. 
Here, therefore, nearly the whole of the ni- 
trogen assimilated by the plant was derived 
from the air. 

In a more recent set of observations, he 
added a weighed quantity of nitrate of pot- 
ash to ^ the pure sand in which the tree 
was raised, and at the conclusion of the 
experiment determined the amount of this 
substance still remaining. In every instance 
the germinating and expanding plant ab- 
stracted the nitrate from the soil to ap- 
propriate its nitrogen in the formation of 
living tissues. After exhausting the whole 
of this mineral supply, it began, where enough 
developed for this action, to draw upon the 
great store of nitrogen in the atmosphere. In 
the. case of wheat, this transition of function 
took place without injury to the plant, even 
before the close of germination ; but tobacco 
and colza required to be sustained by a sup- 
ply of nitrogen from the soil until their early 
leaves were enough developed to enable them 
to assimilate it from the air, after which they 
continued to imbibe it from this source with 
great activity. 

Through what chemical agency this ap- 
propriation of atmospheric nitrogen is brought 
about is a question of great interest, although 
as yet it has not received a satisfactory solu- 
tion. Perhaps, the well-known fact that 
many elements, at the moment of their sepa- 
ration from a previous state of combinations, 
are endowed with greatly increased chemical 
energy, may suggest the direction in which 
this explanation is to be sought. We know 
that carbon is introduced into plants in com- 
bination with oxygen in the shape of carbonic 
acid, and if v*e assume what is consistent with 
analogy, that in the moment of the evolution 
of the oxygen, which, during the day the 
leaves continually exhale, the carbon has its 
activity thus exalted, we are furnished with 
conditions favourable to the assimilation of 
the nitrogen and perhaps adequate to explain 
the result. 

Such is an imperfect sketch of the course 
and results of those remarkable labours of ex- 
perimental science which have made us ac- 
quainted with the principal sources of the ni- 
trogen of plants. The value of their con- 



clusions as means of guiding and improving 
the process of husbandly cannot as yet be ade- 
quately measured. But of this we may be 
sure, that truths so large and so various in 
their applications, like the seed found in 
Egyptian tombs, will continue to yield suc- 
cessively augmenting harvests for the public 
good. 

Wi B. R. 



For the Planter. 
Dear Sir: — The report of an experi- 
ment, by which two methods of harvest- 
ing were to some extent tested, may not 
be unworthy of a space in the Planter. 
You are doubtless aware, that along the 
Mattaponi and and Rappahannock val- 
leys, and elsewhere in Eastern Virginia, 
the old method of binding wheat into 
sheaves has been abandoned ; and it has 
become the practice among farmers in the 
aforesaid localities, to shock loose from 
the swath. Our hands, when we com- 
menced farming in Caroline, or some of 
them, were from Albemarle, and being 
expert "binders," the first crop of wheat 
was sheaved, and from that time to the 
present, we have continued to do so — 
although our labours in the harvest field, are 
generally accomplished as soon, all things 
being equal, as upon the neighbouring 
farms, we have at times felt inclined to 
question the propriety of adhering to a plan 
universally abandoned by our friends near 
us, some of whom are very practical men, 
to whose judgment we defer in many 
cases, and from whom we always differ 
with distrust of our own accuracy. The 
harvest just past was a season of sunshine 
and shower, which at times retarded the 
shocking, and kept that branch of work 
behind the reaping, which we dislike. 
In passing through the estate of a friend 
and neighbor, after a shower, we found his 
hands putting the wheat from the swath 
into shocks, not being sheaved. Our friend 
being generally judicious in what he does, 
and satisfied that the same precipita- 
tion by our method, would result in injury 
to the grain and straw, and loss to us, we 
decided to put up loose the next morning 
for two hours, while the straw would be 
damp, which we did, and shall now report 
the experiment, having reference exclu- 
sively to the celerity with which the work 
can be done in that way. The question 
whether or not wheat can be put up in one 
way in damper condition than in the other, 



476 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



we do not propose to discuss, as that had 
not been set forth as one of the advan- 
tages by our friends in the frequent con- 
versations we have had on the respective 
merits of the two plans. It appears to us 
that no more accurate method of deter- 
mining the question of labour could be 
adopted than the one we put in practice, 
which we will proceed to detail. A given 
force, which it is unnecessary to number, 
was set to work in the morning for two 
hours — the wheat was raked behind the 
cradlers into piles, and borne thence di- 
recti}' to the shocks, the hands so em- 
ployed, being instructed to place a suffi- 
cient quantity, as they put it down in 
the proper places and positions for the 
bases of the shocks, so as to help along 
the shocking. This work the overseer 
endeavored to do in conformity with 
the usual routine he had observed on the 
adjacent farms. We concede that our 
hands might do more after practice in this 
method. At the expiration of two hours, 
we changed to another part of the field, 
half a mile distant, and that all might 
leave in company, it became necessary to 
detain the cradlers for a time to aid the 
rakers and carriers in their work, so that 
all might start together in a fresh place. 
Here was clearly a loss. Now per contra, 
the same hands in another part of the 
field, where the grain too was heavier, at 
the expiration of two hours the wheat 
being bound, had concluded their re- 
spective operations, so that the different 
branches had progressed pari passu, and 
no aid was necessary to fetch things up 
even. Our hands, we admit, are skilful 
binders ; with unpracticed labourers the 
result would be different. We are satis- 
fied that sheaved wheat can be better 
shocked, hauled to the machine with 
greater dispatch, and threshed faster. If 
our experiment shall agree with the trials 
of others, we would simply advise farm- 
ers not to relinquish the practice of 
sheaving grain when their hands have 
been trained to do it — having an eye in 
making the change to labour-saving con- 
siderations. Truly your friend, 

JNO. ROY BAYLOR. 
New Market, Caroline Co., July 8th, 
1857. 



Agricultural Quackery. 
Though agriculture and horticulture 
have attracted the attention of some of 
the wisest and best of men in all ages, yet 
it is only during the past twenty years 
that much progress has been made m\ 
developing the principles on which a judi- 
cious system of cultivation is based. 
Modern chemistry has thrown much light 
on the hidden laws of vegetable and 
animal growth ; and the hundreds of 
patient investigators that are now busily 
engaged in studying agricultural and hor- 
ticultural phenomena, are annually bring- 
ing out new facts, which serve as stand- 
points for further research into the un- 
known. The immense practical value of 
these investigations are readily perceived 
by every reflecting mind. The single 
truth that phosphate of lime, as found in 
bones, apatite, coprolites, and other mine- 
rals, can be rendered soluble by proper 
treatment with sulphuric acid, has added 
millions of pounds to the agricultural 
wealth of Great Britain ; and if the expe- 
riment of Lawes and Gilbert, which have 
already cost over two hundred thousand 
dollars, had taught us nothing more than 
the value and practical application of this 
single fact, the farmers of a single parish 
have already received enough benefit from 
the use of superphosphate on their turnip 
crops to pay the whole sum, and are annu- 
ally reaping profits that would support the 
most richly endowed Agricultural College 
on the globe. If this one fact have proved 
of such great value, have we not good 
reason to hope that the extensive investi- 
gations which are being made in many 
parts of the world will develop facts of 
equal and still greater importance ? Many 
intelligent farmers, however, look with 
distrust on all recommendations issuing 
from any source other than that of practi- 
cal experience. That this distrust is a 
great hindrance to agricultural improve- 
ment cannot be doubted, but scientific 
men have themselves to blame, in a great 
measure, for this want of confidence on 
the part of farmers. They have pro- 
pounded theories which would not stand 
the test of practice, excited hopes which 
have proved illusive, and recommended 
practices which entailed much loss on those 
who were enterprising enough to adopt 
them. The principal cause of these fail- 
ures, is attributable to the fact that some 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



477 



of the more popular and leading scientific 
men left the slow but certain paths of ex- 
perimental investigation, and startled the 
agricultural world by a series of the most 
brilliant and seductive speculations, that 
were confidently expected to revolution- 
ize those # systems of cultivation which 
had been the slow growth of close obser- 
vation and practical experience. The re- 
sult was, as might have been forseen, an 
entire failure. 

The prejudice created in the minds of 
farmers by these unfounded speculations, 
is now gradually melting away before the 
rising light of true, experimental science. 
Many earnest seekers after truth have 
been quietly investigating the laws of 
vegetable and animal nutrition, and the 
number is annually increasing; numerous 
public and private experimental farms 
have sprung up in Europe, and before 
many years we shall have several in effi- 
cient operation in this country and in 
Canada. Scientific men feel the power- 
ful influence of an awakening popular 
sympathy, and a brighter day is about to 
qawn on our agriculture. 

There is, however, a dark side to the 
picture. The country is flooded with ag- 
ricultural periodicals, and every county 
paper has its Farmer's Column;" ambi- 
tious politicians traverse the country de- 
livering agricultural addresses, and it ap- 
pears to be the great aim of too many of 
these lecturers to tickle the popular ear 
with some new and plausible theory. Any 
Dne at all acquainted with the literature of 
the day, must be aware that, while it is not 
entirely destitute of wheat, the chaff 
vastly preponderates. It is in this mix- 
ture of error with truth, of crude spe- 
culation with inductive fact, that consti- 
tutes our greatest danger, and which, if 
not checked, will again bring agricultural 
science into disrepute. 

We have been led to these remarks by 
reading a paper on "Manure, Drainage 
and Irrigation," written by R. L. Pell, 
Esq., President of the American Institute, 
and which has been copied with high com- 
mendation by several agricultural papers. 
We 'cannot believe that the editors took 
the trouble to read over the article before 
copying and commending it. We would, 
therefore, call their attention to the follow- 
ing extracts : 

" If the soil has but a small proportion 



of the phosphates in it, and a great quan- 
tity of the salicaces [silicates,] wheat will 
ruin it more rapidly than barley, for the 
reason that a single crop of wheat will re- 
move a larger portion of the phosphates than 
three crops of barley." 

Now, the fact is, that the same quantity 
of barley removes from the soil more 
phosphates than a crop of wheat. We 
make this statement on the strength of 
forty-two analyses by reliable chemists. 

" If we grow plants that are not intend- 
ed to go to seed, they will require no 
phosphate." 

This is a great mistake. No agricultu- 
ral plant will grow without phosphates. 
Turnips, which are "not intended to goto 
seed," although they do not contain as 
much phosphoric acid as wheat and other 
cereals, "require" for the maximum 
growth a, greater quantity of phosphates in 
the soil than any other commonly cultivated 
crop. 

" The urine of man is much more valua- 
ble than that of the sheep, cow or horse, 
as it contains over eight per cent, of the 
phosphates, which are not found in the 
urine of other animals, except possibly 
the hog." 

According to a large number of analyses 
made and collated by Lawes and Gilbert, 
the " urine of man " does not contain 
half of one per cent. (0.37) of phosphates; 
and the assertion that phosphates " are not 
found in the urine of other animals," is 
still farther from the truth. 

" A soil should never be idle — plant 
your crops, keep the land from weeds, and 
depend mainly upon the morganic com- 
pounds elaborated by nature for their suc- 
cess. You may rest assured that more 
attention should be paid, to the inorganic 
constituents of crops than has been. As, 
for example, I prepared an inorganic 
manure for wheat thus : to five pounds of 
silicate of potash in solution, add five 
pounds of bone dust ; when dry, incorpo- 
rate with it fifteen pounds of common 
Turks Island Salt, and thirteen pounds of 
plaster of Paris. This composition pro* 
duced great results, not only in the yield 
of the grain, but in the beauty of the 
straw, which was thicker than a pipe-stem. 
I then added the following year to the . 
same compound, twenty pounds of wheat 
bran, and ten pounds of the ash of wheat 
straw, and the production was enormous. 



478 



THE SOUTHEEN PLANTER, 



If land was so manured, eighty bushels of 
wheat would result from an acre. I have 
grown, by another process, at the rate of 
seventy-nine and three-quarter bushels of 
wheat to the acre." 

We cannot of course contradict this 
statement. Mr. P. may have obtained an 
"enormous" crop from such a dressing ; 
but we have seen essentially the same 
manure applied, without any particular 
benefit. It is certainly absurd to suppose 
that " if land was so manured, eighty 
bushels of wheat would result from an 
acre." 

" Last year I was desirous of increasing 
the bones of several calves, and not having 
sulphuric acid at hand to dissolve bones 
for that purpose, I tried an experiment 
with lime-water, that proved to be per- 
fectly effectual. The bones were placed 
in a large iron kettle, filled with slacked 
lime in solution, and boiled four hours, re- 
ducing them to a powder, which was used 
with irrigating water on grass land'from 
which the calves fed, adding to it the ne- 
cessary amount of phosphate of lime." 

However true it may be that Mr. Pell's 
calves had plenty of bone in them, it is 
absurd to suppose that the process he 
adopted had anything to do in "increa- 
sing the bones" of the calves. In the 
first place, boiling the bones in lime-water 
would not dissolve them — and even if it 
would, there is not the slightest evidence 
that soluble phosphate of lime will in- 
crease the proportion of this substance in 
the grass ; or if it did, that grass contain- 
ing an unusual quantity of phosphate of lime 
would increase the growth of bones in 
animals feeding on it. 

" Farmers often complain of long pro- 
tracted droughts in summer ; much to my 
surprise, as I glory in dry weather, be- 
cause it restores the constituents of suc- 
ceeding crops, and renovates the soil by 
increasing the mineral matters that have 
been dissipated by growing grain and oc- 
casional rain — and were it not for droughts, 
a barren waste would in time result. God 
thus counteracts man's thriftlessness by 
evaporating moisture from the earth's 
surface, and thus inducing lower stratums 
of water to rise by capillary attraction, 
which carry in solution soda, potash, lime, 
magnesia, &c, to the earth's surface, 
when evaporation carries off the water, 
and leaves these valuable substances for 



man's crops. I discovered this fact by 
having a sample of soil analyzed in the 
spring, when a mere trace of these mat- 
ters was found ; in the fall following, after 
a very severe drought, a portion of soil 
from the same spot was analyzed again, 
and contained them all in very apprecia- 
ble quantities — showing that they had 
been freed from their siliceous coatings by 
atmospheric influences." 

Whether water ascending from the sub- 
soil brings with it " soda, potash, lime, 
magnesia, &c.,"or not, we will not under- 
take to say. The somewhat recent expe- 
riments of Professor Way, however, indi- 
cate that water percolating through a soil 
dissolves out far less of the elements of 
plants than had been previously supposed, 
and it is, therefore, probable that ascend 
ing water is not over-charged with these 
ingredients. Be this as it may, however, 
we have not the slightest hesitation in 
saying that no chemist in the world, by 
the most rigid analysis of the soil, can 
determine the point. 

"If you wish to manure a field of po- 
tatoes advantageously, and produce re- 
markable results, use the manure of hogs 
fed on potatoes." 

Nonsense. The manure made by hogs 
fed on corn, or still better, on peas, would 
be far richer in those elements which ex- 
perience proves are most required by the 
potato, and would produce more "re- 
markable results." 

" Wisconsin, thirteen years since, pro- 
duced forty bushels of wheat to the acre — 
now only twenty." 

We should like to see the statistics. 
The average crop of wheat in Western 
New York, in her palmiest days, was 
never twenty bushels per acre. 

11 Thousands of acres in our own State 
might produce admirable crops, if their 
owners would analyze the earth, and add 
the missing requisites, which, nine cases 
out of ten, would be found to be lime, 
phosphate of lime, or potash." 

The ingredients mentioned, and in fact 
all the constituents of plants, exist on all 
soils capable of producing a blade of quack 
grass or a Canada thistle. The soil may 
not contain them in sufficient quantity to 
enable it to produce good crops, but 
chemical analysis is incapable of deter- 
mining whetner it does or not. — Tennes- 
see Farmer. 



THE SOUTHEEN PLANTER. 



479 



From the Valley Farmer. 

Hints on Building*. 

The first matter to be attended to in the first 
story, is to have suitable strips ready to lay in 
the inside courses of bricks, at the proper 
height to which to nail the base or mop-board. 
Some wall in 3 by 4 scantling for this purpose, 
but a half inch strip 4 inches wide is all suffi- 
cient and even better, as shrinkage is not ma- 
terial in a piece so thin. This should be laid 
on the bare bricks (no mortar) the same on top, 
so that the strip shall answer in the stead of 
the joint of mortar ; to this strip the ground 
should be nailed of sufficient thickness to allow 
of a good coat of plastering, say f of an inch ; 
the ground should be perfectly straight, as it is 
to guide the plasterers in putting on their 
mortar, as well as to receive the base. The 
plastering should extend to the floor that no 
opening be left behind the base. 

Each room should have openings with regis- 
ters both at top and bottom for ventilation. 
The idea that impure air was to be found float- 
ing in the top of the room only, has been 
proved fallacious. Indeed, the most deleteri- 
ous air is that which settles near the floor. 
By making the provision as advised, both may 
be disposed of. Such openings should commu- 
nicate with the outer air by flues to the top of the 
house. The registers should of course be made 
to open and close readily. 

The windows should be 'large so as to admit 
plenty of light, as well as air, when desired, 
and the upper as well as the lower sash should 
be made to slide, either by weights and cords 
(which are best,) or by sash locks, springs, or 
some one of the many methods attaining the 
desired end. 

Let your stories be high. Remember you 
are building a house to live in, and not one in 
which you design to murder yourself and 
family by piece-meals, by the administration of 
impure air. Consequently you want your 
stories high, not less than nine or ten feet 'in 
any case. The idea entertained by some that 
a chamber ceiling should not be so high as a 
parlor ceiling is erroneous, for at no time, 
probably, is pure and fresh air more indispen- 
sable than during the hour of sleep. Hence 
we would advise high ceilings throughout. 
One can readily imagine the baneful influence 
of breathing over and over again the air 
already charged with the impurities of the 
system ; but remember such must be the 
case when low ceilings are adopted. And 
only think, too, how little extra expense 
it is to make your rooms higher. The same 
joists, flooring, lathing and plastering windows, 
doors, everything, except the narrow belt 
around the tops of the room, which would 
probably not exceed 5 per cent additional cost. 
How little, for so much. 

Care should be taken to have no vacant space 
behind the base board, for as sure as such 
space is left, it will very soon be appropriated 



by unwelcome tenants. Let no holes be left. 
The best support for the hearths is a brick arch, 
on which fill up to the proper height Avith 
bricks and mortar (solid) and la}/ the hearth in 
mortar ; by this means those inveterate pests, 
the mice, will be effectually and permanently 
excluded from their almost universal hiding 
place. 

Your flues should be sufficiently large, rang- 
ing, of course, with the volume of smoke to be 
disposed of; 9 by 12 inches inside will be suffi- 
cient for a stove or grate, and for an open fire- 
place 12 inches each way. Flues should 
always be smoothly plastered inside, by which 
means chimneys which would otherwise smoke 
will be made to draw. By mixing a liberal 
amount of salt with common lime and sand 
mortar, and plastering the flues with the com- 
position, you will obviate the necessity of 
cleaning your chimneys or burning them out, 
as is practiced by some persons, thereby laying 
themselves liable to have their houses fired on 
some subsequent burning out of the chimney. It 
is seldom the case that more or less damage is 
not done by bursting the chimney from the 
sudden and excessive heat generated on such 
occasions. When the salt is used it will be 
found that the soot accumulated during dry 
weather will be shed on the return of wet or 
damp weather, and the chimney left clean. If 
you would secure a good draft, you should in all 
cases carry the chimney above the peak of the 
roof, and remember that every additional foot 
in height will increase the draft. The rule to 
insure a draft is to give the flue about one half 
additional capacity more than the throat at the 

gate or fire-place. — Valley Farmer. 
■> ■» ♦ «-> 

Saws and Shovels, 

It would be difficult to name any two 
implements besides the saw and the shov- 
el which are more generally used, and so 
universafly known. It is not necessary, 
however, we presume, to say much of 
their history. Suffice it to observe, that 
they have had probably more " ups and 
downs" than any other thing, place, or 
being. 

They now represent a large family, and 
a various one, with their variety, increas- 
ing their relationship to all things here be- 
low. On the saw side of the family, there 
is a numerous fraternity. The following 
are some of them : Circular, swayed and 
bevel circulars, veneering saws, hand saws, 
panel saws, rip saws, back saws, mill saws, 
muley saws, crosscut saws, tenon saws, 
pit saws, billet webs or wood saws, chair 
and turning webs, hack saws for iron or 
brass, #c. With such a formidable family 
list, it is easy to conclude that truly great 
must be the saw. 



480 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



With reference to the shovel, the varie- 
ty is probably not so great, but its use is 
not less universal. They may be classed 
into three principal department: — Spades, 
shovels and scoops. The next recurring 
question which suggests itself, is, how are 
they made, and who makes them ? 

Having visited one of the largest, if not 
the largest saw and shovel manufactories 
in the country, we now give a short state- 
ment of the modus operandi of the " Qua- 
ker City Saw and Shovel Works," of which 
Messrs. Bringhurst & Verree are the well 
known and gentlemanly proprietors. The 
premises occupied for this purpose are in 
Second street ; they constitute a building 
four stories high, forty feet wide, and one 
hundred and twenty feet in length, each 
story being duly divided into the various 
departments of manufacture. 

As the visitor enters, he sees seven fur- 
naces at his feet, being built in the ground; 
in these furnaces are deposited composite 
melting pots, capable of holding from forty 
to fifty pounds of iron and steel scraps. — 
The metal being melted, is poured into 
iron moulds of various shapes ; these 
moulds, after standing for a sufficient 
length of time to receive the proper tem- 
per, are submitted to the process of rolling 
into sheets, as required for shovels or saws. 

The iron sheets which have betn thus 
prepared, are next cut into square pieces 
by a clipping machine, some of them are 
then trimmed by a machine which is set 
to the shape, so that the square piece of 
sheet iron is by two turnings shaped oval ; 
the others are trimmed square by aguaged 
cutting machine ; they are then placed in 
a furnace, and being withdrawn they are 
placed beneath a ponderous hammer, 
which, falling upon the red hot iron, shapes 
it as required, and as we see it in the 
stores. The straps are opened up ready 
for the reception of the handles. 

The handle receives its set or bend by 
the application of the waste steam ; upon 
being withdrawn from the steam, the han- 
dles are put in clamps and screwed down 
fnto shape, in this condition they are al- j 
lowed to remain until dried and set. 

The shovel or spade, in order to be j 
completed, are submitted to a process of 
grinding and polishing, which having been 
concluded, they are ready for stock. But 
saws and various other edge tools are also 
manufactured at this establishment. 



Circular saws, from four inches to sixty 
inches in diameter are here produced; 
saws also of various kinds named in the 
foregoing portion of this article are made 
there. In this establishment, the saws 
used by the late Dr. Kane for cutting ice 
in the Arctic regions, were made. 

The process of adjusting is the same as 
that described in a former article on the 
manufacture of saws They are of all 
lengths and shapes. The handles for 
some of them are made and finished most 
expeditiously on an upper floor. The 
whole of the machinery in this establish- 
ment is driven by a steam engine of 80 
horse power. 

The other articles which are made in 
this establishment are hay knives, plaste- 
rers' trowels, sliding T bevels, straw 
knives, carpenters' squares, guages, case- 
knives, spirit levels, saw mandrills, and 
several other edge tools, the names of 
which we do not remember. 

There are about 90 persons, including 
boys, employed on the premises There 
are 150 tons of cast steel made every year, 
and about 200 tons of iron for shovels. — 
A considerable quantity of steel is to be 
imported. About 150 dozen* shovels of all 
kinds are made every week. As to the 
number of saws and other implements 
made, their variety would make any state- 
ment of the number manufactured unin- 
teresting. — Germantown {Pa.) Telegraph. 



The Weather in June. 

The mean temperature of June, as as- 
certained by the thermometer at the Penn- 
sylvania Hospital, in Philadelphia, was 69^ 
degrees, which is 2 degrees below the av- 
erage of the last 32 years, and is the cool- 
est June since 1846. The Ledger says : i 

The mercury indicated a temperature of 
89 degrees on the 26th, which was the 
highest of the month, and of 53 degrees 
on the 6th, which was the lowest. The 
amount of rain was 7£ inches. In June, 
1855, there fell within a fraction of eight 
inches, viz: 7.94 inches, which is the 
greatest amount on record at the hospital 
for June. The average amount of rain for 
June for the last 20 years is 3£ inches. 



The newspaper is a sermon for the thought- 
ful, a library for the poor,' a blessing to every 
body. ■ 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



481 



From the Wool Grower. 

Hereditary Influence. 

An article in a late Westminster Re- 
view contains some facts and opinions of 
interest to the farmer in general, and to 
the breeder especially. As the entire 
article is beyond the limits of the Rural, 
we re-write and condense it. Of course 
we must abandon, in a great measure, the 
language of the writer ; the ideas, how- 
ever, we have endeavoured faithfully to 
preserve. 

Tnat parents transmit to their offspring 
their own physical and mental, traits, is a 
fundamental and very obvious law of 
Nature. Otherwise the utmost confusion 
would prevail in the animal creation. 
If like did not beget like, all classification 
of animals would be impossible. The el- 
ephant might be the parent of a mouse 
— the eagle of a butterfly. Every fact 
open to our observation shows the uni- 
versal application of this law. 

Again, nothing is more obvious than 
that offspring, frequently, in many par- 
ticulars, do not resemble their parents. 
From this circumstance arises those slight 
differences which we see in families, as 
also those greater which we may desig- 
nate as deformities, monsters, &c. This 
is true of mental and moral as of physi- 
cal traits. It is not very uncommon to 
notice a superfluity of parts — six legs 
where the kind have but four, — two heads 
instead of one. In the same family we 
observe striking differences in stature, 
asjfect, and disposition. Brothers under 
the same influences will differ as much 
from each other as they will from any 
man they may meet in the street. Even 
in the case of twins this diversity is 
strongly marked. The twins Rita "and 
Christiana, who were so fused together 
as to have but two legs with two heads 
and four arms, were quite unlike in dis- 
position. 

While, then, we admit the law of con- 
stancy of transmission, we must also ad- 
mit a modifying law of variation. \i has 
been attempted to explain this by stating 
that it is the species only, and not the 
individual, that is reproduced. But to 
this there is one fatal objection, namely, 
species cannot reproduce itself, for spe- 
cies does not exist. It is an abstract idea 



and not a concrete fact. 
31 



It is a fiction of j s 



the understanding, and not an object ex- 
isting in Nature. Nature knows only in- 
dividuals'. To a group of individuals 
closely resembling each other we, for 
convenience, appty the term species. 

A survey of facts conclusively demon- 
strates that the individual and the peculi- 
arities to the individual, and not those of 
an abstract type, are transmitted. This 
has been observed in the human race ; 
and every breeder has seen repeated in- 
stances of the fact amorig the lower an- 
imals. Every breeder knows that the 
colours of parents are inherited — that 
their spots are repeated: Chambon lays 
it down as a principle, derived from ex- 
perience, that by choosing parents you 
can produce any spots you please. 

But another and an important bearing 
of this subject is found in the fact that, 
at times, accidents also become heredi- 
tary. A superb stallion, son of Le Glo- 
rieux, who came from the Pampadour 
stables, became blind from disease. All 
his children became blind before they were 
three years old. Horses marked, during 
successive generations, with a hot iron in 
the same place, have transmitted the vis- 
ible traces of such marks to their colts. 
Instances may be multiplied to show con- 
clusively that accidental defects may be 
transmitted. The general law, however, 
is that they are not so transmitted. 

Longevity is an individual peculiarity, 
and as such may be inherited. So it is 
seen that long-living runs in families. 
This point is illustrated, in the Review, by 
numerous instances quoted from M. Chas. 
Lej on court's Galerie des Contenaires, pub- 
lished in 1842. 

, Mental or moral peculiarities, and ac- 
quired habits are in like manner inherited. 
Girou relates the case of a sporting dog, 
taken young from its father and mother, 
who was singularly obstinate, and exhib- 
ited the greatest terror at every explosion 
of the gun, which always excites the ar- 
dour of its species. It was ascertained 
that the father of this pup had exhibited 
the same trait. It is well known that the 
vicious disposition of horses, dogs, &c, 
is often transmitted. 

The inevitable conclusion, says the Re- 
viewer, is that parents transmit their 
individual peculiarities of form, colour, 
longevity, idiosyncrasy, &c, to their off- 
spring; and that they do this not as re- 



482 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



producing the species, but as reproducing 
their own individual organization. 

In all the higher classes of animals, 
two parents, a male and a female, repro- 
duce themselves in- the offspring. The 
question then arises, — what is the influence 
of each upon such offspring! Each sex 
has, by different writers, been considered 
most' influential. Again— it has been stat- 
ed that certain portions of the young 
have been supposed to arise from each 
parent. 

Upon the first point, Gen. Daumas has 
recently published the result of his long 
experience with Arab horses, arguing that, 
according to the testimony of the Arabs, 
the stallion was the most valuable for 
breeding purposes. In reply, the Inspec- 
teur des Haras,* who had traversed Asia 
for the express purpose of collecting evi- 
dence on the subject, published his dia- 
metrically opposite conclusion — that it 
w r as the mare whose influence predomi- 
nated in the foal. Gen. Daumas replied, 
and cited a letter addressed to him by 
Abdel Kader, in which it is said — £' the 
experience of centuries has established, 
that the essential parts of the organiza- 
tion, such as the bones, the tendons, the 
nerves, and the veins, are always from 
the stallion ;" and again, " the principal 
qualities are from the stallion." 

Vicq-d-Azir, speaking of the mule, 
says : " // seems as if the exterior and 
the extremities were modified by the 
father, and that the viscera emanate from 
the mother." Mr. Orton, in his lectures 
ic On the Physiology of Breeding," says, 
f 'the male gives the external configura- 
tion, in other"words, the locomotive or- 
gans, while the female gives the internal, 
that is, the vital organs." This may be 
scientifically stated— " the mail gives the 
animal system, the female the organic or 
vegetative." 

As proof of this theory, Mr. Orton 
cites the well known instance of the mule 
— "a modified ass — ears, mane, tail, skin, 
colour, legs, and hoofs, like the ass ; the 
body or barrel round and full, resembling 
the mare." Whereas, the product of the 
stallion with the female ass is in the same 
particulars a modified horse. " The 



■• Inspector, or Superintendant of a horse. 



mule," says Mr. Orton, " brays the. hinny 
:neighs" 

But these results may be accounted for 
on another principle, that of " potency of 
race.'" Both are modified forms of the 
ass, in each of which the structure and 
disposition of the ass predominates, and 
does so in virtue of that "potency of 
race," which belongs to the ass — a poten- 
cy which is less effective on the hinny, 
because the superior vigour of the stallion 
modifies it. 

Buffbn states that the produce of a dog 
and a she-wolf sometimes bark and some- 
times howl. In the human family we 
know that a magnificent voice is as often 
inherited from the mother as the father. 
Orton again states that the cross between 
the Cochin China cock and common hens 
invariably lay white eggs. He also states 
that Bake well, of Dishley, would sell or 
let his best rams — his best ewes were 
sacred. These he would neither sell nor 
let. 

On the other hand Girou states that 
" farmers are more particular about the 
bull than about the cow when they want 
a good milking cow, for it is observed that 
the property of abundant secretion of 
milk is more certain to be transmitted 
from a bull than from a cow." » It cannot 
be doubted that the bull does transmit his 
qualities to his descendants. Neither can 
it be denied that the female does the 
same. And it may well be questioned 
whether, as regards the secretion of milk, 
the influence of the cow is not as great 
as that of the bull. It may truly be said 
that, " if the organization of the male 
was the only orfe that passed to the child, 
the child would resemble the father, as 
the fruit of a graft resembles the tree 
from which the graft was taken, aud not 
at all the tree on which it was grafted." 

There are several perturbing causes 
which prevent the perfect transmission 
of the qualities of the immediate individ- 
ual parent. The first of these is the in- 
fluence of one gestation of the female 
upon subsequent ones — illustrated by the 
case mentioned by Sir Everard Home, 
of the mare that had a mule bv a Quagga 
in 1816 and who produced in "1817, 1818, 
and 1823, foals marked by the curious 
Quagga marks, although she had not seen 
the Quagga after 1816. Other similar 
cases are cited. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



48 



A second perturbing cause is atavism, 
or the influence of ancestry. It is well 
known that family peculiarities of colour, 
deformities, &c, may skip a gene.ratiqn? 
and re-appear in the second. 

y A third Cause is what is called the 
11 potency of race or individual." This 
influence has often been obvious in tjie^ 
history of the human race. £mong ani- 
mals it has often been Sufficient to destroy 
all the calculations of the breeder. Girou 
attempted crosses of the Merino with 
both the Roussillon arid the Aveyron 
•sheep, during twenty-ffVe years. The 
Aveyron was soon lost in the Merino ; 

• but, at the end of that time, the Roussil- 
lon was found to show itself distinctly. 
What is true of races, is also true of in- 
dividuals. It is the stronger individual, 
whether male or female — the stronger 
family — the stronger race, that exerts 
most powerfully a modifying influence on 
the offspring. 

Certain general facts are arrived at, 
which are thus summed up by the Re- 
viewer : 

1. Heritage is constant; it is a law of 
organized beings that the organization of 
parents should be transmitted to their off- 
spring. 

2. The offspring directly represents 
both parents, and indirectly it represents 
its ancestors. 

3. The offspring never represents its 
parents with absolute equality, although 
it represents them in every organ. Some- 
times one parent predominates in one 
system, sometimes in another, and some- 
times in all. 

4. The causes of this predominance are 
various, some being connected with "po- 
tency of race," or individual superiority 
in age, vigour, &c. ; others being in the 
present state of our knowledge, not re- 
cognizable. 



From the Prairie Farmer. 

Kidney Worm in Swine. 

John K. Warre*n writes,, " I am desir- 
ous of obtaining information regarding the 
Kidney-worm in swine, symptoms, cause, 
and proper treatment — and of worms gen- 
erally in that kind of stock. Can your 
readers inform me how to treat the scurf 
that appears upon the skin, especially on 
the back of the Suffolk breed, supposed to 
be mange, but I now tnink it the effect of 
cold weather." 

Kidney Worms. — Cole, in his "Dis- 
eases of Animals," says: " This disease 
is indicated by weakness'about the loins." 
It will also exhibit itself in inability to 
use its limbs — sometimes one fore leg 
wilj refuse to do its duty — sometimes both 
hind legs are powerless. 

Remedy. — The above named author 
says: "Corn soaked in lye of wood 
ashes, perseveringly used, has cured in 
many cases." Another writer says, " this 
may do in recent and slight affections ; 
but a more certain treatment is, to make 
an incision aboui an inch long, on each 
side of the back-bone, over the kidneys, 
and after separating the skin slightly from 
the part beneath, insert two or three 
cloves of garlic. Take a stitch to con- 
fine the garlic. Df Holmes of the Maine 
Farmer thinks pieces of onion or garget 
root would do as well. 

A writer in the Southern Cultivator 
says, to effect a cure requires nothing but 
a free use of copperas dissolved in water 
and mixed with meal so as to form a 
dough. It will require some six or eight 
doses to cure a hog after he has got down. 
All farmers should give this to their hogs 
several times in the spring of the year — 
in fact it is good for them occasionally 
through the year." The same writer 
says : " Copperas will destroy the large 
worms frequently found in the bowels of 
a hog;, as well as those in the kidneys. 



Way of using Guano for Corn. — Mix good 
guano thoroughly, with six times its weight of 
dry rich loam, several days before using it. 
Drop half a pint of the mixture into each hill 
before planting the corn. You may sow gu- 
ano broadcast, also, on the same field on which 
you practice the above method. If the soil is 
heavy, harrow it in; if light, it may be plough- 
ed in with a light plough. This should be 
done before planting, of course. — Farm Jour- 
nal. 



One ounce or less is enough in any case. 
Sulphur is also good for hogs, and enough 
of it will make them shed* lice if they 
have any, and may be given without any 
risk of danger." 

Another remedy of u kidney-worms," 
we have seen, is to place the hog on its 
back and tramp its bowels across its kid- 
neys. Another — g&h the hog on the 
back, and fill the cuts with salt; another 



484 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



has cured the disease by making an in- 
cision over the kidneys near the spine, 
about four inches long, and sometimes 
over an inch deep, filled it with pods of 
red pepper and then sewed it up. An- 
other, in the Ohio Cultivator is, " to give 
the animal afflicted one ounce copperas 
daily for six or eight days. Make a slop 
of about two quarts of corn meal and 
dish-water; dissolve the above quantity 
of copperas in a tea-cup of warm water, 
and mix the whole together; then give it 
to the hog." The disease of several 
months standing has been cured in this 
way. 



A Louisiana Sugar Plantation. 

The American Farmer has an interesting 
account of a Louisiana Sugar Plantation, as 
follows : 

I will take a plantation in my vicinity, 
■'Magnolia," the property of Messrs. Daven- 
port & Ford, containing one thousand acres, 
about seven hundred of which are in cultiva- 
tion ; and one hundred slaves, seventy of whom 
are working hands, the balance children. Of; 
the number of acres in cultivation, the usual 
average is two-thirds in sugar cane, and one- 
third in corn. 

The plantation is laid off as follows : — A 
main road runs through its centre thirty feet 
wide. The land under cultivation is divided 
"into cuts," three acres in length, separated 
from each other by " head lands " eighteen 
feet wide ; consequently all these head-lands 
intersect the main road, and are exactly at 
right angles with it. Running in parallel 
lines with the main road are a series of 
ditches three feet deep, and one acre apart. 
At every sixth cut we find a cross ditch six 
feet wide and six feet deep, running like the 
head-lands at right angles with the main road. 
These cross ditches receive the drainage water 
from the parallel ditches, and empty them- 
selves into two large side canals, situated .on 
the boundary lines above and below, which! 
carry out the water to tide level. Thus each 
series of cuts drain simultaneously, and the j 
water from one series does not run over the 
other, each large cross ditch carrying only the 
water of its sections. These ditches are all 
bridged at the head-lands. 

As early as possible in January or February, j 
the land is thrown up into beds of seven feet 
width, a furrow is run down the centre, on top | 
the bed, and the cane taken from the matlay, \ 
and placed in the furrow lengthwise. Thus! 
the cane is planted fn rows seven feet apart, | 
the rows running continuous with each other] 
from one cut to another. Before it is covered, ' 
either by hoe or plow, it m cut into short pieces 
about a foot or two in length, having several ' 



eyes on a piece. This is done by hands who go 
along the furrow with sharp cane knives. The 
cane is then covered, sometimes by hoe, some- 
times by plow. If the land is in good pulver- 
ized condition, by the latter, if not, by the 
former. 

The cane is cultivated after it comes up 
similar to corn, with the exception of first 
scraping nearly all the earth off, being well 
plowed and hoed, and kept very clean of grass 
and weeds. « 

When the cane is ready to roll, which is ordi- 
narily from the first to middle of October, a 
certain quantity is cut up by the ground, and 
set up in large shocks or matlays (as they are 
called), their base covered with earth. This 
cane is kept in the matlays as seed until the 
next planting in the spring. Two crops of 
sugar being obtained, the land is then thor- 
oughly broken up with four mules, and Hall's 
No. 4 plow, and planted to corn, in rows seven 
feet apart. At the last working of the corn, 
cow peas are sown in the furrow on each side 
the corn, and covered with plow or hoe. After 
the corn has been- gathered, a heavy roller is 
passed over the corn stalks and pea vines, and 
a three or four horse plow turns the whole 
under from six to ten inches. This land is 
planted in the fall or spring, in cane as before 
stated. 

The corn crop on Magnolia is just harvested, 
and yields about eight thousand flour barrels of 
shucked corn. The corn is all gathered and 
housed in a large corn-house. On this planta- 
tion the plowing is deep, no scratching work 
done ; the ditches, head-lands, and fence-corners 
clean, and free from all weeds ; an exception 
to the general rule South. 

There is on the plantation, besides the sugar 
house (which contains a refinery), a blacksmith, 
wheei-wright and cooper shop, extensive corn 
house, and stabling for mules. Of the latter, 
there are forty-five valued at $190 each. There 
is also an overseer's house, and a large hos- 
pital. The fencing on this place is all post and 
rail, and is only on the outside of the place, or 
rather there are no cross fences. 

All work is done with regularity, and in an 
efficient manner ; the maxim being, "Be sure 
every morning that everything is provided and 
planned, to accomplish a full day's work, and 
then see that you get it done." 

Plows, wagons, harness, and all the tools are 
kept in working order, and when not in use, 
secured out of the weather. No slighting of 
any kind of work is allowed, nor attempted by 
the hands. 

The thorough manner in which the planta- 
tion has been drained, and the deep plowing, 
have produced evident improvement in all tha 
crops. 

The ordinary yield of sugar cane on this 
plantation above described, is an average of 
700,000 lbs. besides the molasses, from 800 to 
1,000 lbs. of which are made. What the pro- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



485 



duce will be this year is utterly impossible to 
tell at present. 

Hogs are raised on the plantation for fresh 
pork, and the breed used are Berkshire and 
Essex. Of the latter, there is a beautiful im- 
ported sow, that cannot be surpassed in the 
Union for her points. 

Besides, the young cattle raised on the place, 
a number are bought every fall for the con- 
sumption of the place. 



Feeding Horses. 

Your remarks in relation to the amount of 
bay and grain, which a horse will consume per 
day, have attracted my attention. The actual 
amount of food consumed by a* horse will de- 
pend upon his form and disposition. I have 
found that horses of a compact form and quiet 
disposition, weighing about 1200 pounds, and 
exerting a force equivalent to moving 150 or 
200 pounds at the rate of two miles per hour, 
for ten hours per day, and six days in the week, 
will require each twenty pounds of oats, four- 
teen pounds of hay, and seventy pounds of 
water, with a comfortable stable, and to keep 
them in good order. Then also much of the 
condition of the horse will depend on his 
having a driver who knows how to use him 
without harshness. 

This is the conclusion I have arrived at, 
after thirty years' experience with a great 
number of horses on my hands the most of the 
time. The cost of keeping horses for farm 
work is expensive, when compared with the 
cost of keeping oxen or mules. — Mich. Farmer. 



Pulverize the Soil. 

Voelcker, Professor of agricultural chemis- 
try to the West of England Society, Exeter, 
thus writes as to pulverization of soil : — 

" The efficacy of a manure or the practical 
effect of which it is capable, is greatly influen- 
ced by the mechanical condition of the land. 
Land varies very much in this respect, and, as 
a matter of course, the same manures act dif- 
ferently on land of different descriptions. I 
may illustrate this by referring to experiments 
I have made on land attached to Cirencester 
College, where I used superphosphate on a 
piece of ground which did not yield so much 
as another piece where none had been used ; 
but I took the precaution to try the manure in 
a third place, and here the yield was three 
times as much as on that which had not been 
manured. The fact is that on clay land super- 
phosphates are of no use unless the land is 
properly pulverised. Some farmers imagine 
that by using in the land the best artificial 
manures, they do not require so much labour, 
or any additional labour. There can be no 
greater mistake; for the best artificial manures 
often fail, more or less, entirely for want of 
proper pulverisation of the soil. It is of the 



greatest consequence that the land on which 
artificial manures are used should be in a high 
state of subdivision. Artificials can only be 
used with advantage by farmers who have im- 
proved agricultural implements and methods 
of tillage, and paid a great deal more of atten- 
tion to the mechanical condition of the land 
than many farmers of the old school. If a 
farmer has not sufficient skill to manage a farm 
on improved principles throughout, the mere 
use of artificials will help him comparatively 
little, and he will perhaps do better to stick to 
farm-yard manure under such circumstances. " 
Canadian Agriculturist. 
■*-•--©-•-» 

To Cleanse the Inside of Jars. 

There is frequently some trouble in cleans- 
ing the inside of jars that have had sweetmeats, 
or other articles put in them for keeping, and 
that, when empty, were wanted for future use. 
This can be done in a few minutes, without 
scraping or soaking, by filling up the jars with 
hot water* (it need not be scalding hot,) and 
then stirring in a teaspoonful or more of pearl- 
ash. Whatever of the former contents has re- 
mained sticking upon the sides and bottom of 
the jar, will immediately be seen to disengage 
itself and float loose through the water. Then 
empty the jar at once, and if any of the former 
odor remains about it, fill it again with warm 
water and let it stand undisturbed a few hours, 
or till next day ; then empty it again, &a& 
rinse it with cold water. Wash phials in the 
same manner. Also the inside of kettles, or 
anything which you wish to purify or clear 
from grease expeditiously and completely. If 
you cannot conveniently obtain pearl-ash, the 
same purpose may be answered nearly as well 
by filling the vessel with strong ley, poured off 
clear from the wood ashes. For kegs, buckets, 
crocks, or other large vessels, ley may be al- 
ways used. — Ohio Valley Farmer. 

An Indian Corn Harvester. 

A model of a machine that has been tested, 
for cutting Indian corn, was exhibited by Mr. 
Coates, of Philadelphia, by which eight acres 
a day can be cut and left in gavels, by a man 
and two horses. The machine appears as well 
contrived for the purpose for which it is design- 
ed as the mowers or reapers for their respec- 
tive purposes. It will greatly facilitate the bu- 
siness of raising corn at the West, and lighten 
a branch of the labor that requires men with 
strong arms — Canadian Agriculturist. 



There is now one Examiner in the Patent 
Office, whose entire attention is given to har- 
vesters, (reapers and mowers,) and another 
whose whole time is devoted to sewing ma- 
chines, for which no less than two hundred 
patents have already been issued, while new 
ones are constantly applied for. — Ohio Valley 
Farmer. 



486 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



VIRGINIA STATISTICS. 

As illustrative of the progress of Agri- 
cultural improvement, and of material 
wealth in Virginia, we present our readers 
with the following tables prepared from 
authentic public documents. 

Comparative Statement of the Assessment 
of Lands in Va. in 1850 and 1856. 



1st or Tidewa- 
ter District. 



Alexandria, 
Accomac, 
Charles City, 
Caroline, 
Chesterfield, 
Essex. 

Elizabeth City, 
Fairfax, 
Greensville, 
Gloucester, 
Hanover, 
Henrico, 
- of Wight, 
s City, 
King -eorge, 
King & Queen, 
King William, 

• jster, 
Matho 

Middlesex, . 
Nansemo: 
Norfolk City & | 
Portsmouth, j 
New Kent, 
Northumberland, 
Northampton, 
Princes An. 
Prince George, 
Prince William, 
Richmond, 
Southampton, 
Spottsylvania & | 
Fredericksb'rg, j 
Surry, 
Sussex, 
Stafford, 
Warwick, 
Westmoreland, 
York, 

Fredericksburg, 
Norfolk, 
Petersburg, 
Portsmouth, See 
Richmond, 
Williams burs:, 



Aggregate 
value of 
lands in 

1850. 



2,349,541 

2,796,252 

861,579 

2,521,704 

4,057,942 

1,587,205 

694,516 

2,945,924 

548,986 

1,297,432 

2,333,674 

4,247,398 

1,209,571 

568,557 

1,093,843 

1,337,468 

1,366,702 

792,171 

634,471 

704,882 

1,464,331 

3,267,165 

708,110 

966,080 

1,280,557 

1,226,376 
1,352,115 
1,703 236 
811,286 
1,096,175, 

2,971,545 



Aggregate 
value of 
lands in 
1850. 



OS 

o 8 

u ** 
9 « 
P4..5 

77 

5 

16 
33 

6 
26 
40 



4,068,809 

2,948,529 

1,003,497 

3,362,938 

4,309,106 

2,009,435 

971,946 

4,368,267148 

793,759 44 

1,879,792 45 

3,144,487 35 

7,294,729 71 

1,365,04912 

774,705,36 

1,499,585:37 

l,737,'97i;30 

1,698,502:24 

953,036.20 

749,363|18 

856,296j21 

1,703,65416 

4,083,956125 

917,121129 
1,176,61822 
1,390,033 8 
1*499,14622 
1.962,626 45 
2,585,69352 
1.044,276 23 
1,468,94034 

3,661,295:23 



726 

905, 

1,275, 

309, 

1,111, 

644, 

See Spo 

4,587, 

3,767, 

Norfolk 

13,735, 

183, 



443| 860,121118 
798i 1,045,79914 
664j 1,690,70832 
263j 435,20240 
582! 1,645,203148 
217 860,956|33 
ttsylvania. 
325! 5,401,48617 
128 6,287,230 70 
County. 

307j 17,681,699.28 
335 292,800,59 



78,042,856 103,479,903 
j 78,042,856 



25,437,10-i 



32.85 



2nd or Piedmont 
District. 



Appomattox, 

Albemarle, 

Amelia, 

Amherst, 

Bedford, 

Brunswick, 

Buckingham, 

Campbell and 1 

Lynchburg, j 
Charlotte, 
Culpeper, 
Cumberland, 
Dinwiddie, 
Fluvanna, 
Fauquier, 
Franklin, 
Goochland, 
Greene, 
Halifax, 
Henry, 
Loudoun, 
Louisa, 
Lunenburg, 
Madison, 
Mecklenburg, 
Nelson, 
Nottoway, 
Orange, 
Patrick, 
Pittsylvania & 

Danville, 
Powhatan, 
Prince Edward, 
Rappahannock, 



value of 
lands in 

1850. 



1,091,671 
5,383,494 
1,340,550 
1,889,671 
3,071,563 
1,132,649 
2,103,599 



Aggregate "g 
value of 
lands in 

_1856.__ 
1,481,398 



7,250,643} 
2,189,064) 
2,193,421 
4,849,237 
1,553,141 
2,419,006 



4,613,261! 5,692,854 



2,658,838 
2,516,159 
1,524,104 
1,220,971 
1,424,136 
6,275,752 
.1,807,835 
2,218,768 

708,007 
3803,336 

957,612 
9,156,846 
2,627,115 
1,036,024 
1,829,036 
2,725,397 
2,077,297 
1,109,291 
2,057,783 

751,441 

3,213,716 

1,517,939 
2,071,121 
1,966,786 



3,296,676 
3,068,610 
2,043,148 
2,537,279 
2,106,489 
9,755,536 
2,453,264 
2,635,316 
"944,674 
5,366,885 
1,631,907 
11,600,097 
3,450,886 
1.565,958 
2,140,567 
3,527,264 
2,709,861 
1,905,815 
2,748,666 
1,321,719 

5,313,516 

1,927,639 
2,613,910 

2,688,422 



77,681,768 106,982,848 
77,681,768 



29,301,080 



Ph_.S. 

35 
34" 

63 
16 
57 
37 
15 

23 

24 
21 
34 
116 
48 
55 
35 
19 
33 
40 
70 
26 
31 
51 
17 
29 
30 
71 
83 
76 

65 

26 
26 
c6 



37.32 





Aggregate 


Aggregate j-* g 


3rd or Valley 


value of 


value of « a 


District. 


of lands 


lands in u ~ 




, 1850. 


1856. \£ J 


Alleghany, 


624,256 


869,040 39 


Augusta, 


8,763,059 


10,211,914.16 


Bath, 


765,993 


1,030,939 34 


Berkeley, 


4,408,018 


5,097,188,15 


Botetourt, 


2,419,186 


3,056,322 26 


Clarke, 


3,381,185 


3,832,53713 


Frederick and } 
Winchester, j 


3,256,112 


5,742,75170 


Hardv, 


2,654,223 


3,889,191 9 


Hampshire, * 


2,963,778 


3,863,845.30 


Highland, 


1,271,671 


1,282,956 


Jefferson, 


6,135,047 


6,708,899 9 


Morgan, 


687,259 


727,15200 


Page, 


1,701,503 


2,100,422 23 




000,000,000 


oo,ooo,ooo;oo.oo 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



487 



3rd or 


Valley District— 


-Continued. 




Bro't forw 


ard, 


00,000,000 


00,000,000.00.00 


Pendleton, 




992,122 


1,068,83307 


Roanoke, 




1,771,860 


2,958,564|67 


Rockingham 




6,852,743 


8,338,72821 


Rockbridge, 




3,467,177 


5,200,69650 


Shenandoah, 




3,638,822 


4,477,83923 


Warren, 




1,594,217 


2,200,099138 






57,348,291 


72,657,915 26.70 








57,348,291 






15,309,624 





4th or Trans-al 
ghany District 



Barbour, 

Boone, 

Braxton, 

Brooke, 

Cabell, 

Carroll, 

Doddridge, 

Fayette, 

Floyd, 

Giles, 

Gilmer, 

Grayson, 

Greenbrier, 

Hancock, 

Harrison, 

Jackson, 

Kanawha, 

Lee, 

Lewis, 

Logan, 

Marion, 

Marshall, 

Mason,- 

Monroe, 

Mercer, 

Monongalia, 

Montgomery, 

Nicholas, 

Ohio & Wheeling 

Pocahontas, 

Preston, 

Pulaski, 

Putnam, 

Randolph, 

Ritchie, 

Russell, 

Raleigh, 

Scott. 

Smyth, 

Tazewell,; 

Tyler, 

Taylor, 

Washington, 

Wayne, 



Aggregate 
value of 
lands in 
1850. 



1,193,712 

228,233 

495,647 

1,714,504 

1,182,666 

440,812 

514,204 

467,592 

658,951 

976,880 

941,327 

570,528 

2,807,634 

775,273 

2,914,344 

1,326,013 

2,857,702 

1,078,961 

1,972,811 

327,808 

2,050,471 

2,097,497 

1,825,886 

2,219,406 

415,002 

2,391,012 

1,450,193 

792,666 

4,034,514 

957,235 

1,168,799 

927,489 

715,192 

1,122,641 

826,905 

973,868 

240,504 

734,003 

1,569,063 

1,280,298 

913,840 

1,114,099 

2,666,891 

612,637 



Aggregate 
value* of 
lands in 
1856. 



1,390,533 

425,441 
1,120,293 
1,148,172 
1,882,959 
4,282,851 

742,306 

801,272 
1,615,068 
1,179,716 

839,250 
1,002,146 
3,288,949 

873,629 
4,233,858 
1,540,207 
3,460,960 
1,813,538 
1,475,260 

338,644 
2,669,902 
2,426,546 
2,758,827 
3,272,510 

639,580 
.2,997,075 
2,650,812 
1,341,294 
5,101,033 
1,218,147 
2,980,604 
1,707,526 
1,048,982 
1,287,652 
1,261,657 
1,536,447 

510,266 



17 

86 
125 
Deer. 

'59 
871 

44 

'71 
145 

20 
Deer. 

75 

17 

12 

45 

16 

21 

68 

Deer. 

2 

30 

15 

51 

47 

54 

25 

80 

69 

26 

27 

62 

84 

46 

14 

52 

57 
112 



1,590,568:116 
2,321,831 48 
2,221,633 76 

964,978 
1,226,934 
4,436,095 

880,117 



5 
10 
66 
43 



4th or Trans- Alleghany District — Continued. 



Bro't forward 
Wirt, 
Wood, 
Wyoming, 
Wythe, 
Wetzel, 
Roane, 
Tucker, 
Upshur, 
Craig, 
Calhoun, 
Pleasants, 



000,000,000000,000,000 



512,344 

1,732,098 
127,397 

2,254,997 
598,337 



61,770,886 



498.807 

2,459,725 

380,196 

3,308,095 

891,292 

601,469 

358,868 

1,319,341 

852,959 

378,432 

611,279 



94,166,431 

61,770,886 



32,395,555 



00.00 
Deer- 

42 
198 

46 

49 



m 



Total increase 37 per ct, or 100,000,000. 



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488 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



Garget in Cows. 

A correspondent asks us to give some infor- 
mation in regard to garget in cows — the cause, 
remedy, &c It is a disease which affects 
the udder, and is caused by the coagulation of 
the milk in that organ. Cows are most subject 
to it soon after they have calved — young cows 
being particularly liable to it, on account of 
the milk not being thoroughly drawn. Cows 
with fleshy, hanging udders are also more liable 
to garget, both because the fleshiness con- 
tracts the glands, and because the udder is 
more exposed to external injury, by bruises, 
&c. The retention of the milk produces inflam- 
mation, fever, and soreness of the udder. If 
the disease is long continued, the glands lose 
their function, and a permanent injury, so far 
as regards the milk-producing power, is the re- 
sult. 

The most common remedy, in this section of 
the country, is the administration of the root 
of poke, or poke-weed [Phytolacca decandra). 
Pieces of the root, to the amount of two to four 
ounces, (in a green state,) are given daily, till 
a cure is effected. Sometimes a seton is formed 
by splitting the folded skin of the dewlap and 
inserting a small piece of the poke-root; This 
frequently reduces the inflammation of the 
udder. Some persons look on this plant as al- 
most a specific against garget, and it is some- 
times called " the garget weed." We have no 
doubt that it is a good medicine. It is thought 
that cows are less liable to garget where this 
plant grows plentifully, or where they can crop 
th? leaves and tender stalks, which they will 
do if they have opportunity. 

Saltpetre in used as a medicine in this dis- 
ease — a table-spoouful being given to the cow 
in meal, on alternate days. Rut in bad cases, 
the treatment recommended by Youatt would 
probably be more effective. He recommends 
iodine in the form of an ointment — one part of 
hydriodate of potash with seven parts of lard. 
We have heard of this proving successful when 
other means had failed. Some of our readers 
may recollect a communication we published a 
year or two since from Dr. Eben Wight, de- 
tailing his experience in the use of this remedy. 
As it may be useful to our correspondent who 
has made inquiry respecting this disease, we 
copy the most important portion of Youatt's 
observations in regard to it: 

If the inflammation continues or increases, 
or the bag should be so tender that the mother 
will not permit the calf to suck ; and especi- 
ally should the fever evidently increase, and 
the cow refuse to eat, or cease to ruminate, and 
the milk become discoloured, and mixed with 
matter or with blood, the case must be taken 
seriously in hand. The cow should be bled ; 
a dose of physic administered ; the udder well 
fomented ; the milk drawn gently, but com- 
pletely off, at least twice in the day, and an 
ointment composed of the following ingredi- 
ents, as thoroughly rubbed into the bag as the 



cow will permit. (Rub down an ounce of cam- 
phor, having poured a tea-spoonful of spirit of 
wine; add an ounce of mercurial ointment, 
and half a pound of elder ointment, and well 
incorporate them together.) Let this be applied 
after every milking, the udder being well fo- 
mented with warm water, and the remains of 
the ointment washed off before the next milk- 
ing. 

If the disease does not speedily yield to this 
treatment, recourse must be had to iodine, 
which often has an admirable effect in dimin- 
ishing glandular enlargements. The only ob- 
jection to iodine, and which renders it advisa- 
ble to give the camphorated mercurial oint- 
ment a short trial, is that while; by its power 
of exciting the absorbents of the glands gene- 
rally to action, it causes the dispersion of un- 
natural enlargements, it occasionally acts upon, 
and a little diminishes the gland itself. This, 
however, rarely happens to any considerable 
degree, and will not form a serious objection 
to its use when other means have failed. It 
should be applied externally in the form of an 
ointment (one part of the hydriodate of potash 
being well saturated with seven parts of lard,) 
one or two drachms of which should be rubbed 
into the diseased portion of the udder, every 
morning and night. At the same time the 
hydriodate may be given internally in doses 
gradually increased from six to twelve grains 
daily. 

The udder should be frequently examined, 
for matter will soon begin to form in the centre 
of these indurations, and should be speedily 
evacuated lest it should borrow in various parts 
of the bag, and, when at length it does find its 
way to the surface and bursts through the skin, 
irregular ulcers should be formed, at all times 
difficult to heal, and sometimes involving the 
loss of more than one of the quarters. When- 
ever there is any appearance of supuration 
having commenced, (a minute observation will 
enable the practitioner to discover the very 
spot at which the tumor is preparing to point,) 
the diseased part should be freely and deeply 
lanced, and an immense quantity of matter will 
often be discharged. It is generally bad practice 
to cut off the teat ; not only is it afterwards 
missed in the milking but the quantity of the 
milk is usually lessened to a greater or less 
degree. 

Should the tumor have been left to break, a 
deep and ragged ulcer will then be formed, 
and must immediately be attended to, for the 
neighboring part will be rapidly involved. 
Half of the bag lias in sumo cases become 
mortified in a few days, and diseased portions 
have either dropped off, or it has been neces- 
sary to rjemove them in order to stop the spread 
of the gangrene. The chloride of lime is an 
invaluable application here. The wound should 
be well cleaned with warm water, and then a 
dilute solution of the chloride freely applied to 
every part of it; not only will the unpleasant 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



489 



smell of the ulcer be immediately got rid of, 
but its destructive progress will be arrested, 
and the wound will speedily take on a healthy 
character. When this is effected, recourse may 
be had to the Friar's balsam ; but the occa- 
sional use of the chloride will be advantageous 
until the bag is perfectly healed. 

Chronic indurations will sometimes remain 
after the inflammation of garget has been sub- 
dued ; they will be somewhat tender, and they 
will always lessen the quantity of milk ob- 
tained from that quarter. The iodine will sel- 
dom fail of dispersing these tumors. The oint- 
ment just recommended should be well rubbed 
in twice every day, and if the enlargement does 
not speedily subside, the hydriodate should also 
be given internally. Mr. Christian, of Canter- 
bury, and the author's friend, Mr. May, of 
Maldon, relate two cases of chronic garget, in 
one of which the induration had existed four 
months, and occupied two of the quarters, and 
was accompanied by the occasional discharge 
of blood ; and in the other it had been observed 
more than a twelve month, and was increasing. 
An ointment was used by Mr. Christian, in the 
form of the iodine itself triturated with lard ; 
and a liniment composed of the tincture of 
iodine with soot by Mr. May. In the course of 
three weeks, the udder was in both cases as 
well as if it had never been diseased. The 
hydriodate of potash is, however, the most 
manageable and the most effectual preparation 
of iodine. 

The causes of garget are various; the thought- 
less and unfeeling exposure of the animal to 
cold and wet, at the time of, or soon after par- 
turition, the neglect of physic or bleeding be- 
fore calving, or suffering the cow to get into too 
high condition, are frequent causes. So power- 
ful is the latter one, that instances are not un- 
frequent of cows, that have for some time been 
dried, and of heifers that have never yielded 
milk, having violent inflammation of the udder. 
The hastily drying of the cow has given rise to 
indurations in the udder that have not easily 
been removed. An awkward manner of lying 
upon, and bruising the udder is an occasional 
cause ; and a very frequent one is the careless 
habit of not milking the cow clean, but leaving 
a portion in the bag, and the best portion of 
the milk too, and which gradually becomes a 
source of irritation and inflammatian in the 
part. Connected with this last cause is the 
necessity of the advice already given, to milk 
the cow as clean as possible at least twice in 
the day, during the existence and treatment of 
garget. — Boston Cultivator. 



Tobacco— the Insects that Infect it, and 
the Remedies. 

Several young tobacco growers have asked 
us for something on tobacco this season. We 
commend the following article to them. Equally 



do we commend it to our old planters, among 
whom we have some friends that will profit by 
it. Its clear and admirable style, will com- 
mend it to any one who reads the first para- 
graph, and its valuable facts and judicious sug- 
gestions will richly repay him who is tempted to 
read to the end. 

Poplar Hill, July 4th, 1857. 
F. G. Ruffin, Esq : 

My Dear Sir : — I have examined the Tobac- 
co Plant as requested by you in a former com- 
munication, as regards the relative position of 
its leaves to one another and to the parent 
stem, and now give you the result, together 4 
with a few other inklings connected with the 
culture of that weed. 

In an extract you enclosed me, of a Lecture 
by Professor Agassiz, he says : 

" In the vegetable kingdom, the principle 
holds. Leaves form regular series. They are 
arranged according to a regular succession of 
numbers or fractions. Consider a blade of 
grass. Its leaves spring alternately on either 
side. Commencing at the bottom of the stalk 
and going up spirally, you find the second leaf 
on the opposite side from the first, and exactly 
over it, the fourth over the second, and so on. 
You go spirally half way round from one to the 
other. 

Now take marsh grass. Its blades are 
arranged round the stalk in the same way, but 
the distances are different. The second blade 
is one-third of the way around the stalk from 
the first. The next is two-thirds of the way 
around, and so on. 

Take now a rosebush stem. The second 
leaf is distant from the first, two-fifths of the 
way around the stalk. The others follow each 
two fifths farther around, until finally the sixth 
is just over the first. 

Take again a pine tree twig. The second 
blade is distant from the first three-eights of 
the way around, until finally the ninth blade is 
exactly over the first. 

Other plants have their leaves arranged each 
distant from the other five-thirteenths of the 
way around the stalk. 

So that we have a series of fractional dis- 
tances, thus : 



1-2 



1-3 



2-5 



3-8 



5-13 



These fractions, it will be seen, do not differ 
much from each other. There, are none of 
them less than ^, and none of them are more 
than }. They form a regular ascending series, 
in which any two added together will make the 
third. Such is the uniform and careful ar- 
rangement of the countless leaves of the elms 
above our heads, and of the pine forests of yonder 
plains ! 

Turn now from plants to planets. Measure 



490 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



the time in which each of them circles the sun. 
It is here : 



Neptune 

Uranus 

Saturn 

Jupiter 

Asterodia 

Mars - 

Earth - 



62,000 days. 

31,000 » 

10,000 " 

4,330 " 

1,600 " 

- 680 " 

- 365 " 



Now examine these sums. The second is 
half the first; the third is one-third of the 
second; the fourth is two-fifths of the third ; the 
fifth is three-eighths of the fourth ; the sixth is 
five thirteenths of the fifth. So that we have 
again precisely the same fractions in the same 
order: — 



1-2 



1-3 



2-5 



5-13 



Whence this strange similarity ? How can 
it be accounted for except by the. fact that the 
same Hand adjusted the blades of grass, which 
set in motion the Orbs of the Universe? 

On examination I find that the leaves of the 
Tobacco Plant are distant each from the one 
bejow, just | of the way around the stalk. In 
this respect you will observe that this plant 
and the pine tree of our forests bear the same 
relative position. By this ratio the ninth leaf 
comes directly over the first, and thus it 
enables the planter to top with accuracy with- 
out the trouble of counting at each plant. All 
that he has to do, is to pull out the bud in- 
cluding this ninth leaf, if he wishes to top at 
8, to leave it for 9, and to leave the one just 
over the second leaf from the bottom if he 
wibhes to top at 10 leaves, and so on up. 

Another advantage in the growth of the 
plant is, that the 8 leaves, when fully developed, 
correspond with the four full and four half 
points of the compass, occupying fully the 
whole circumference, each leaf, not being 
shaded by any other, receiving the full light 
and heat of the sun, which is so very essential 
to its perfection in ripening. I have heard 
some of our best planters contend for this 
"reason that 8 leaves was all that nature intend- 
ed should grow on tobacco, and that more 
pounds and more money could be made by top- 
ping at this number than at any other quanti- 
ty. This is still a mooted point among plan- 
ters, some contending for one number and 
some for another. Much depends on the char- 
acter of the season, and still more on the fertili- 
ty of the soil. Our "Farmers' and Planters' 
Club" instituted a series of experiments to 
test this point of the proper number of leaves 
to be left on the plant ; and though the reports 
differed somewhat, still all proved that on good 
lands the plant would bear a higher number 
than 8, some making more pounds at 10 leaves, 
some at 12, and one gentleman endorsing 14 
leaves as the number most profitable in pounds. 
There being not a great difference between the 



present price of lugs and inferior leaf, and th e 
best grade of leaf, I am inclined to the opin- 
ion that more pounds and money can be made 
by topping at 10 or 12 leaves than at a lower 
grade. But for a high grade of shipping to- 
bacco, or heavy rich leaf for strips, a less num- 
ber is desirable. But enough on this point. 

There is another point important in the 
culture of Tobacco, about which there is a 
lamentable ignorance among planters. I al- 
lude to the nature and habits of the various 
insects that prey upon its growth, from the 
seed to the fully ripe plant, and constitute the 
great evil to the planter. Much has been written 
about the Hessian fly, joint worm, chinch bug, 
and the various insects prejudicial to the cot- 
ton plant ; but never yet have I seen any re- 
port on the various enemies to the Tobacco 
plant — their manner of propagation, habits, 
&c. And here I must notice, en parenthesise, 
the fact, that the Legislature of the State of 
New York lately made an appropriation, and 
employed an able entomologist, Dr. Fitch, to 
examine and report on the various insects of 
the State, — which report has just been pub- 
lished, and from extracts from it, I am satisfied 
that it ought to be in every planter's library, 
even in Virginia. Now, if our own State Leg- 
islature were to make a like appropriation, 
more would be done for her "Internal Improve- 
ments" than by the thousands annually voted 
to schemes that " begin nowhere, and end no- 
where." Some of " the plagues" are upon 
us, and it behooves us to do everything in our 
power to ameliorate them, if we cannot eradi- 
cate them. 

But to return. I have been not a little sur- 
prized in my interviews with my brother plan- 
ters, to find how various and mistaken are 
their opinions about the simplest facts con- 
nected with these little marauders ; as for in- 
stance, the duration of life of the horn worm. 
Now, with no pretentions to superior know- 
ledge on these subjects, I am induced to give my 
own theories and facts, hoping that it will 
provoke others of more experience to give the 
public the benefit of their observations. That 
these pests are alarmingl}'' on the increase, 
none will deny ; and as I have no confidence 
in joint worm conventions, or chinch bug in- 
dignation meetings, I can see no other means 
by which their destruction can be effected, than 
by the planters' observing their habits and 
characteristics, devising means for their de- 
struction, and communicating the results of 
their observations and experiments through 
some appropriate channel to the public, — and 
none more appropriate than the columns of 
your valuable " Planter." 

The insect enemies to the Tobacco plant are, 
as they come in the order of depredations — the 
boll worm, fly, borer, clover worm, grasshop- 
per, bud worm, and horn worm. 

To give all these due notice, w r ould make 
this communication too long and tedious, and 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



491 



I shall only allude particularly to the boll and 
horn worm. Having given my own theor} r 
and remedy for the Fly, in a former article, it 
is not necessary to repeat them now, — and I will 
pass over the others, merely stating, that, hav- 
ing made three satisfactory experiments with 
ground alum salt, sown broadcast, at the rate 
of a sack per acre, and harrowed in the win- 
ter fallow in early spring, as a remedy for the 
borer and clover worm, I feel fully warranted 
in endorsing its efficacy. In the last instance, 
strips were left not salted, which fully cor- 
roborated the value of the agent used. 

First of all, then, I will notice a small 
worm that preys upon the seed while growing 
in the pod or boll, which— in the absence of 
any name — I will style the " Tobacco boll 
worm." Every planter must have observed 
in pruning his seed-heads, that many bolls 
fall off, or become partially discolored, — a 
lobe at a time, until the whole pod has the 
appearance of being prematurely ripe. On 
examination, a small hole about the size of an 
ordinary dress-pin will be found on the side of 
the boll ; and if it be opened, the seed will be 
found imperfect, shriveled, and encased in a 
fine web. This is the work of the boll worm. 
They are about one-fourth or three-eighths of 
an inch in length, dark brown in colour, with 
a light head. 9?hey attack the boll about the 
time the see*d are perfectly formed, and in 
what is termed the milk state. I am perfectly 
satisfied, from experiment, that seed taken 
from these bored pods will not germinate, and 
during the last two or three seasons, I have 
seen many seed-heads nearly totally destroyed 
by these insects. Often have I heard planters 
complain, that after sowing thrice the usual 
quantity of seed on their plant beds, they 
were too thin ; and they attribute the failure to 
excessive use of guano, or to stable manure, thick 
coverings, or un propitious seasons, — when the 
great evil was, that they sowed defective seed 
—-made so by boll worms. I give these facts 
credit for contributing more to a failure in 
having good stands in our plant beds, than 
every other cause combined. I know of no 
remedy for them, and can only recommend to 
others what I do myself: viz : turn out an ex- 
cessive number of seed-heads, prune closety, 
and carefully pick off every boll on which I 
find a boll or puncture, before rubbing out 
seed for sowing. 

And now lastly, though not least, permit me 
to pay my respects to the Horn Worm. Hav- 
ing had something to do with this fellow, I may 
be permitted to speak of him without reserve. 
During the last season, I closely watched in 
several instances the habits and transitions of 
this worm from the egg to the chrysalis, and 
am surprised at the difference in fact between 
its habits and the opinions of old and experi- 
enced planters on the subject. From memo- 
randa made at the time, I gathered the follow- 
ing facts concerning its life. After the egg.is 



deposited on the under side of the leaf of the 
Tobacco plant, by the Tobacco Fly, (Sphynx 
Carolina), it remains from 4 to 10 days before 
being hatched. This depends on the tempera- 
ture of the atmosphere. Late in the fall the fly 
deposits the egg on the top instead of the under 
side of the leaf, that it may have the benefit of 
the sun to hatch it. As soon as the young 
worm leaves the egg, it commences feeding, and 
continues for about 48 hours, when it ceases 
for about 12 or 18 hours in order to deplete itself, 
after which it sheds its skin and removes to a new 
place to protect itself from the rays of the sun. 
If suddenly exposed to the heat of the sun, 
while in this tender state, it will perish. It 
then continues feeding until the sixth day, 
when it goes through the same process of de- 
pletion, and sheds its skin and again removes 
to a riew place of feeding. At this period the 
worm is not more than half an inch in length. 
About the tenth day it goes through a similar 
process, removing to a new scene of feeding ; 
and again about the 15th day it sheds its skin 
for the last time. Up to this time the worm 
has not grown to more than f or 1 inch in 
length. It has lost from 4 to 6 days of time 
from feeding in the process of depletion and 
losing its skins, and has fed at four different 
places on the leaf or plant. It invariably chan- 
ges its place after each process. After the last 
change, it feeds voraciously and grows very 
rapidly, and it is after this time that worms do 
material injury to the plant. Before this, the 
whole of the leaf destroyed by them, is not 
much larger than an old American dollar, and 
that distributed in several holes. They con- 
tinue to eat up to about the 25th day, when 
they cease altogether — change to a very dark 
shade of green, and go into the ground and into 
the chrysalis state. They remain in this state 
for an uncertain period, depending on the heat 
to hatch them into the fly. Two years ago, I 
put some last cutting's into an old house, seldom 
used, in which there was a considerable quan- 
tity of old straw on the dirt floor. The worms 
fell from the Tobacco and burrowed into the 
floor. During the past season I cleaned out 
the house for the same purpose and found, after ' 
several days, that many Tobacco flies had just 
hatched out after remaining in the chrysalis 
state a whole year, being kept so by the damp, 
cold floor and covering. More can be done to 
prevent the ravages of the worm by catching 
the fly than by any other means. The monthly 
honeysuckle, growing in our gardens and 
around our bowers affords material aid for this 
purpose, and I have^ found by offering a small 
premium to little niggers that many will be de- 
stroyed while sucking the blossoms of the 
Jamestown weed usually growing about their 
quarters and the stables. I tried dropping co- 
balt in solution with sugar into these blossoms 
to poison them and cannot say that I succeeded 
in killing any flies. I watched and saw them 
suck the poison greedily and then go off evi- 



492 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



dently under its influence. I found that by 
dropping the poison in half a dozen blossoms, 
I effectually killed the plant in 24 hours. 

As we cannot possibly catch all the flies, my 
next effort is to get the worms. I believe the 
practice of some planters around me in this 
work, is rather different from that in other To- 
bacco growing regions. It is this. We go over 
our crops rapidly, only looking for worms of a 
siae to do injury, and never stopping to catch 
little fellows. My hands worm from 4 to 6000 
hills per day — thereby going over the crop 
twice a week. Nothing is so ' killing' tedious to 
me, as to watch over a big 1200 dollar fellow 
stooping over a little plant of Tobacco, peep- 
ing about ; cracking eggs, and rubbing off poor 
little pigmies, while hundreds of big worms 
are eating — I would that I could say their 
heads off, at the other end of the row. 

In a conversation with an old planter the 
other day on this subject, I remarked that I 
thought the moral effect of such slow work on 
hands was bad. "Yes," he said, " I hav.e no 
doubt that it has a very bad effect on their 
morals!" Our watchword is, "Touch light 
boys, and go along." I am satisfied that more 
worms, and those big ones, can be destroyed by 
this system than by the old custom of trying 
to catch all. You seemed surprised, when on 
a visit to us, at our worming and suckering two 
rows at a time. I know not the custom of 
planters in other regions, but it seems to me 
that if I wormed only one row at a time, after 
the old style of catching all, that by the time 
I went over my crop, the last portion would 
present nothing but a beggarly supply of stalks 
and stems. In these wormy times, a Tobacco 
field would exhibit nothing but " bare, poles." 

Having bored your readers thus long, pru- 
dence prompts me to close ; but I cannot do so 
without asking that some one will give in your 
paper some statement of the habits of the clo- 
ver worm, as he is known among us. I find a 
great variety of opinions as to- the origin and 
ultimate destiny of this insect. I have heard 
it gravely contended that these worms go into 
the chrysalis state, and come out the black bug 
about an inch in length that we find about 
wheat shocks — also that they changed to the 
field horse fly — the black clover worm corres- 
ponding with the black flies that we sometimes 
find on stock. I should be glad to be informed 
on this subject. 

I remain yours, &c. 

Frank Peyton. 



Important to Farmers. 

Messrs. Editors. — I have noticed statements 
through the columns of several papers of late, 
in regard to the present crop of wheat in the 
United States, &c.,-&c. 

Now as far as my observation has gone, I 
can see no such prospects, as I have seen pub- 
lished through the newspapers, here of late ; 
and I must say they are very much exaggerated. 



I have no wheat of my own to dispose oi; 
but I would advise all those who have wheat i 
sell, not to be in a hurry about selling. B<< 
cause where there is one good crop of when 
this .year, there are fifty bad ones. I have coi 
suited with gentlemen who have travelle 
through the most of the Northern and Wester 
States, as well as a portion of the Canadas 
and from their account ordinary fields of whe; 
here in Virginia, were better than the be-, 
there. 

Now where is there such great prospects fi 
such big crops of wheat this year. For we a 
know they are the " main States" in the Unk 
for wheat. And that generally of the fine ^ 
quality, and in abundance. To prove that th, 
is not the case, let ever y farmer make his ow 
calculation, by his own as well as his neig ^ 
bors crops ; and I guess he will find, instead i 
an abundance of wheat for home and foreig, 
demand, that there will not be more tha, 
enough for home demand, or such small am'oui 
over, that it would not be worth naming. 

I would advise all farmers to keep the 
wheat until November, at least, unless they ca 
get $2 per bushel for it. Because in that tin 
all the small crops which the poor class of tl 1 
community have, will have been carried in 
market, and have been ground by the " mil 
lers." That is what keeps the* price of whei 
down generally at the opening 6*f the marke 
The small crops are generally carried into ma, 
ket as soon as it is threshed, let the price 1 
what it may; and the consequence is the mi 
lers have a plenty to keep them employed. An 
another very important item is this: soni 
farmers deposit their icheat on "storage," wilj 
the millers and merchants, and by so doing the 
have enough to grind and speculate on, unt 
the farmers are compelled to sell. In the mea ! 
time the farmer is losing interest on the amoun 
of money he gets for his wheat, while they ai 
turning it over and over again, without payin 
any thing on the amount of wheat stored wit 
them. 

j Farmers ! quit " storing" your wheat, an> 
you will get better prices for your grain, whici 
will be to your interest. 

Moreover, farmers, don't listen to such err< 
neous statements as you sometimes see in th 
papers. Probably you are not aware that 
great many "Editors" are paid to publish sue 
statements, by the speculating part of the con 
munity; who, when the} 7 want to buy grab 
flour, d'c, they publish that the crops are i 
abundance ; and so soon as they get a suppl 
at the lowest figures, why then, as a matter ( 
course, it is scarce, and prices advance imnn 
diately. I know this from observation som 
years back. 

For instance, the Editor of one of the prir 
cipal Northern papers, (a paper which has 
large circulation through the South, as well a 
other portions of the Union,) a few years sine 
was said to have gone on a trip to Europe, an 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



493 



sry steamer brought news from him, that the 
rvest was excellent, and in abundance, &c, 
. But it was ascertained very soon that he 
is in America, had not been to Europe at all. 
ell we all must know that he was paid to do 
; or he would not have taken the pretended 
p to Europe, when he was in the United 
ates at some neighbouring town. " This is 
ry often done too." 

Now, farmers, keep your eyes open, and have 
ne judgment of your own. Instead of lis- 
ling to speculators and others, who take no 
terest in your welfare, and you will not be 
ught napping so often. 

And so far as my observation has gone, in- 
>ad of a full average crop of wheat this sea- 
a, I don't think that there will be the third 
an average crop. Now I would advise all 
•mers to keep their wheat out of the market, 
less they can get $2 per bushel for it. As 
I humble opinion is, that those who hold on 
til the Spring will get $2 50 or $3. Don't 
; a little pressure in the market cause you to 
•ce your wheat in. 

A Minute Observer. 
July 15th, 1857. 



lorttfulftiral Drpartmrnt 



E. G. EGOIING, Contributor. 



Peaches and Peach Trees. 

The peach was introduced into the United 

ites from England, about the year 1680, and 

,s cultivated in lower Virginia about as early 

in any part of. the country. There is no 

rt of the world in which peaches are grown 

>re largely and extensively than in this coun- 

I Many growers in New Jersey have orchards 

iging from ten to twenty thousand trees, and 

sre are few even larger orchards in other 

alities. It is a source of large revenue to 

) growers, as the fruit commands usually 

m fifty cents to four dollars the bushel. 

The leading varieties are cling-stone and free- 

ne, or as they are more generally known in 

ginia, as plum and soft peach ; and these 

lin are divided into white, yellow and pur- 

, according as the colour of the flesh is one 

the other. There is an almost infinite varie- 

of names given to different peaches, as to 

tance, Early Red Rare Ripe, Old Mixon, 

ite Heath, &c. ; but all of these belong to 

i of the before mentioned varieties. Time 

i Is when the peach was suspected of possess- 

; poisonous qualities, and considerable preju- 

e attended its introduction into some coun- 



tries, but we believe that all are agreed now 
that it is one of the choicest if not the choicest 
production of the orchard. It was, once, more 
extensively cultivated in this region than it is 
now ; the disease, known as yellows, having 
years ago attacked the trees and destroyed vast 
numbers, so that the farming community were 
discouraged from cultivating them. Of late 
years, however, our farmers have begun again 
to give more attention to peaches, and new 
orchards are being planted every year. To 
meet the wants of many who would cultivate, 
we propose some remarks on the culture of the 
peach, and some general rules for the conduct 
of the peach orchard. 

Supposing that the reader intends planting 
an orchard of peach trees, the first thing to be 
considered, is, what peaches are most desirable, 
in answering which, we shall have an eye to 
such a selection as will give fruit for the 
longest period. Among the earlier varieties, 
we commend the Early Red Rare Ripe, Morris' 
Red Rare Ripe, George the Fourth, and Red 
Magdalen, and among the later, Washington, 
Malta, Heath peaches, and old Mixon. There 
are many others, but these are standards which 
may be relied on. 

The next thing to be considered is the loca- 
tion of the orchard, and first concerning this, 
we have to remark, that it is an error to sup- 
pose that a southern exposure is best for the 
peach tree. On the contrary, a northern or 
western is preferable, for this if for nothing 
else, that in a southern exposure the trees come 
into bloom early, and the fruit is often destroyed 
by late frosts, which would not be so likely to 
occur with a northern exposure. There is this 
moreover, that the peach is an exotic and not 
perfectly adapted to our climate. The sap 
vessels are large, and there is a large amount 
of moisture stored up in them in the winter 
season.- When the weather is very cold the 
moisture here confined congeals, and any 
sudden thaw is apt to burst the cell tissues, if 
the expansion caused by freezing does not, and 
as this would materially injure the trees, a 
situation, in winter, where they would be least 
liable to sudden thaws, is surely best. 

There is a common opinion that the peach is 
very fastidious as to soil. It is somewhat of an 
error. Peaches will grow in any soil, except 
perhaps a heavy clay, which retains too much 



4 94 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



moisture. A sandy or gravelly loam is best, 
though we have always known them to thrive 
better in a red clay loam on a subsoil of rotten 
shaly rock. There is such a locality or the 
old Richmond Turnpike ; and for years, in 
passing, we have observed peaches growing 
and thriving there, when they were not to be 
seen elsewhere. It attracted our attention, 
and upon examination, we found, it to be such 
a soil as before described. 

What is the best time to plant. According to 
our observation the fall of the year is preferable, 
but there is really little choice in this section. 
One advantage of fall planting is, that the tree 
is likely to get a good root-hold before winter, 
and sometimes will bear fruit the following sea- 
son, which the spring planted tree rarely does, 
while on the other hand the tree planted early 
in spring, when the land is newly turned up, is 
likely to grow off more vigorously ; and here, "at 
least, after the first breath of spring, there is 
usually wintry weather enough to settle the 
tree ; so that, in fact, it matters little whether 
the trees be planted in spring or autumn. 

Preparatory to planting, the soil . should be 
broken up very deep, and made as light and 
friable as possible. The holes should be dug 
at least three feet square, for a more foolish 
habit can hardly be conceived than that so 
common in Virginia of digging post holes for 
trees.* In throwing out the earth from the 
holes, put the top soil to itself to be first 
shoveled into the hole, so that the roots of the 
tree may come directly in contact with the top 
soil, and a moderate application of shell lime, 
will both tend to promote the growth of the 
tree, and to preserve it from those diseases 
which most affect it. When shell lime cannot 
be had, marl will answer an excellent purpose ; 
indeed the finest peaches which we have ever 
seen were grown on a gravelly knoll, near Pe- 
tersburg, which was heavily marled in the'first 
instance. Persons sometimes have trees de- 
stroyed by worms or disease which might have 
been saved by the use of lime at planting. 
Before putting the tree into the earth, trim off 
with a sharp knife all bruised, mangled roots 
or parts of roots; and in removing them begin 
to cut on the under side, cutting upwards with 
a slanting cut, so that the cut will rest directly 
upon the soil, when roots will put off from the 
point where the cut was made. The tree is now 



to be put into the hole, and special care mm 
be observed not to put the tree too deep. Th 
great error in Virginia, is that peaches ar 
planted too deep. In Scotland the peach i 
put on the top of the earth, and a hill mad 
round them, but while our climate is not hi 
mid enough for that, it is fatal error here t 
plant deep. In general, plant the tree n 
deeper than it stood in the nursery, and if thei 
is a departure either way, let them be pu 
shallower, so that the top roots may be ver; 
near the surface. To help the tree until firml 
established, a small hill may be raised aroun 
it at the time of planting, which is to be r< 
moved in a year or so afterwards. In add 
tion, it is always desirable to stake the youn 
trees, which will keep them steady until firml 
rooted, and will tend also to make the tree 
straight and symmetrical. 

Nurserymen sometimes, either from ignc 
ranee or design, send to farmers trees alread 
diseased. Often, if the farmer will look at th 
roots of the young trees, he will find adherin 
to them, balls of glue, looking very much lik 
jelly, the sure indication of disease. Let n 
one receive or plant such a tree, for be assure 
it is worthless. This gum exudes from 
wound made in the soil by a worm, known a 
the peach borer, (Egeria exitiosa) whos 
attacks may be prevented by the free use d 
lime in the nursery and orchard. In one in 
stance, we used on 1000 young scions in ou 
nursery 20 bushels of lime, # and so rid theplac 
of this fatal enemy. No sign of his ravage 
could be found thereafter. The trees should b 
planted from sixteen to twenty feet apart everj 
way, the lesser distance being ample where th 
land is to be dedicated specially to orchart 
purposes, and the larger space being prope 
when it is intended to put in other crops. 

The chief cultivation which the peach tre< 
requires, is to have the ground round abou 
the trees stirred and kept entirely free fron 
weeds and grass. No heavy crop should be cul 
tivated in the orchard, "but anything light ma^ 
be planted between the trees. There can b* 1 
no doubt but that such stirring of the soil as ! 
would be given every year where some ligh 
crop was made, is advantageous to the peach 
and even deep ploughing has the tendency o:| 
stunting the growth of the tree and increasing' 
its productiveness. It is, however, of mosl 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



495 



importance that round about the tree shall be 
kept from sodding, and beyond this little is re- 
quired save what we shall hereafter mention. 

As appertaining to the cultivation of the 
orchard, we have to treat of the training, or 
pruning of the trees. The trees usually come 
into bearing in three or four years, and where 
fchey are left alone, generally have a good 
shaped rounded head and well garnished with 
leaves. The fruit, be it recollected, is borne on 
the young shoots of the previous year's growth, 
and in a young tree these are distributed 
throughout the tree. But the growth from 
year to year is chiefly from the outer extremi- 
ties of the branches, and if the tree is left un- 
pruned, in a few seasons all the fruit-pro- 
ducing wood will be on the outside of the tree, 
and the interior of the tree is full of long, lean 
branches, with only the young fruit, bearing 
shoots at their extremities. The tree, there- 
fore, has only half the number of young, -fruit- 
ful shoots which it would have had if they 
had been distributed throughout the tree, inv- 
stead of being confined to the outside, and then 
the limbs being long, and the fruit hanging on 
the outside, the tree is very liable to be broken 
especially when high winds are prevailing. 

These evils are all to be avoided by pruning 
according to a system, which we shall attempt 
to describe, and which is known as the shorten- 
ing in system, and which, regularly and rightly 
pursued, we venture to predict that the peach 
may be preserved in full vigour and produc- 
tiveness, for a period of from ten to thirty 
years. 

For the purpose of illustration, let us select 
a young tree in its first year's blossoming. It 
is usually from five to eight feet high, with a 
well-shaped head, branching out about three 
feet from the ground, — and the nearer to the 
ground the better, — and has yet never been 
trimmed, except perhaps so much as was ne- 
cessary to correct any deformity in its shape. 
The last of February, or as early in the spring 
as possible, we commence pruning. This con- 
sists merely of shortening in, that is, cutting 
off half the last year's growth, over the whole 
putside of the head of the tree, as also upon 
the inner branches. As the average growth 
of the branch per year is from one to two feet, 
,we shall take off from six to twelve inches 
I from each branch. This precise measurement 



is not, of course, to be adhered to, but the 
stronger shoots should be shortened back, or 
cut off most ; and any long or projecting limbs 
which destroy the balance of the head, should 
be cut off to an uniform, length. The cut 
should be made slanting, as that heals more 
readily, and should be made with a very sharp 
knife, that it may be clean and smooth. This 
course of pruning is to be followed regularly 
year after year, through the whole life of the 
tree, and the effect of it will be, to give the 
tree a thick, low, bushy head, filled with 
healthy, young fruit-bearing wood, and in 
summer with an abundance of dark green, 
healthy foliage, and handsome fruit. 

It is very evident, that by thus cutting, 
you at the same time reduce the crop one half, 
and this might be objectionable to some per- 
sons who failed to consider, that it doubles the 
size of the fruit, and vastly improves its qual- 
ity. Mr. Downing mentions two trees, stand- 
ing near each other, — one of which was reg- 
ularly shortened in, and the other unpruned — ■ 
of the same age and size, and each bore about 
four bushels of fruit, but that on the pruned 
tree was nearly double as large as that on the 
other — the fruit on the pruned tree thus mak- 
ing up in size what it lacked in quantity. 
While, therefore, this process guards against 
that great evil, an over-crop, it at the same 
time provides an abundant supply of fruit- 
bearing shoots for the next year's crop, — im- 
proves the size and quality of the fruit, gives 
the tree a more handsome and more compact 
appearance, prevents the weight of the fruit, 
— aided by the winds — from breaking, tearing, 
and thus destroying the tree, adds to the vig- 
our, and consequently prolongs the life of the 
tree, — and by shading the- trunk and roots of 
the tree, aids to protect it from disease and the 
ravages of the insect tribes. As illustrating 
its effect in prolonging the life of the tree, 
Downing, in his work on Fruits, cites two ex- 
amples of trees in France, in one of which 
they had attained the age of sixty years, and 
in the other the age of one hundred years ; 
and that, too, in a climate not so favourable to 
the peach as that of this country. 

These advantages, which the experience of 
cultivators in this country and in Europe 
show^to result from pruning in general, and 
especially from that system which we have 



496 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



here commended, ought to be sufficient to in- 
duce every owner of an orchard to bestow 
some care upon his peach trees. The contrary 
opinion and practice has usually prevailed in 
this region, — cultivators generally seeming to 
think that all that was needed was to 
plant the tree, and then leave it to shift for 
itself. 

The peach tree is liable to two forms of dis- 
ease, one known as the yellows, — a most fatal 
disorder ; and the other the curl, which attacks 
the leaf, and is merely temporary in its effects. 
Besides, it is subject to the attacks of the 
borer, or peach-worm, to which we have be- 
fore alluded. 

The borer does great mischief, by gird- 
ling and eating the whole circle of bark 
just below the ground, which enfeebles the 
tree, and frequently causes it to die. The 
insect, in its perfect state, is a slender, dark 
blue, four-winged moth, somewhat like a wasp. 
It deposits its egg in the soft and tender bark 
at the base of the trunk, between June and 
October; and when the egg hatches, it becomes 
a small white borer or grub, which grows to 
three-fourths of an inch long, penetrates and 
devours the bark and sap-wood, and after pass- 
ing the winter in the tree, it enfolds itself in 
a cocoon under or upon the bark, emerges in 
a perfect or winged form in June, and com- 
mences depositing its eggs, for a new genera- 
tion. 

It is not difficult to get rid of this pest. In- 
deed, if at the time the tree is planted, lime 
be plentifully used, as before directed, there 
is every probability that the tree will never 
be molested. But its exemption from attack 
may be rendered positively certain, by the 
application of lime every season. Persons 
have tried the experiment, time and again, of 
putting a peck or half peck of air-slacked 
lime around each tree, and the result has been, 
that all so treated were preserved, while those 
neglected were destroyed by the borer. Some 
persons use, for the same purpose, ashes, char- 
coal, clay, mortar ; and others recommend 
air-slacked lime, or bleached ashes, — the shell 
lime being, in our judgment, preferable. This 
is the easier and simpler mode of dealing 
with the borer ; though some cultivators ex- 
amine their trees every season, and when by 
removing the earth appearances of gum or 



casting are seen, they cut into the tree with a 
knife, and remove the pest. 

The yellows, — the greatest enemy of the 
peach tree, — seems to belong exclusively to the 
peach tree, and to be confined to this country. 
It may be recognized by the following symp- 
toms. Upon the branches appear slender, 
wiry shoots, a few inches long, bearing starved, 
diminutive leaves. These shoots are protruded 
from latent buds on the main portion of the 
stem and larger branches, and the leaves are 
very narrow and small, — quite distinct from 
those of the natural size, and either pale yel- 
low, or destitute of colour. The fruit ripens 
prematurely ; the first season of the disease 
it grows to nearly the usual size, but the fol- 
lowing season will not be more than a fourth 
or half so large ; and is always marked with 
external spots and specks of purplish red. In- 
ternally the flesh is more deeply coloured, es- 
pecially around the stone, than usual when 
the tree is healthy. These are the infalible 
indications of the disease. 

There is no well-settled theory of the cause 
of this disease ; but so far as anything is 
known, it would seem to be mere exhaustion 
or feebleness in the tree, — as those trees - are 
most subject to it which bear heavy crops of 
fruit every year ; and it is most prevalent in 
those sections where the trees rarely if ever 
fail to bear. But whatever be the origin of 
the disease, it is fatal and believed to be conta- 
geous ; and is undoubtedly propagated by bud- 
ding or grafting, whenever the bud or graft 
is taken from a diseased tree. The most lux- 
uriant varieties are most likely to be attacked, 
and the yellow varieties more than others-. 
Slow growing sorts are not often attacked. 
Frequently the disease comes upon a single 
branch, and attacks no other part of a tree 
but in a few seasons it spreads over the whole 
tree ; and so, at its first appearance, it is bet- 
ter to destroy the tree at once. 

Properly speaking, there is no remedy for 
this disease ; and the only prudent course is, 
wherever a tree shows the symptoms, cut it 
down immediately, — as by standing it will not 
only cumber the ground, but, if almost the 
universal opinion of cultivators be correct, it 
will spread the infection to other trees. Ex- 
termination is the rule for every tree tainted 
with yellows. Then the utmost care must be 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



497 



taken to procure healthy trees ; and then to 
keep them healthy, pursue steadily from the 
first bearing year the system of pruning 
herein before recommended, which will pre- 
vent over-bearing ; and then by guarding 
against the attacks of the borer, the tree 
will be preserved in vigour for a long period. 
All these, it will be observed, are measures of 
prevention, and this is all which, in our opin- 
ion, can be done, — as the disease once fixed 
upon a tree is incurable. 

The curl attacks only the leaves, and usu- 
ally appears in May or June, — the leaves 
curling up and becoming thick and swollen, 
with hollows on the under and reddish swell- 
ings on the upper side ; the leaves in two or 
three weeks falling off. It is caused by the 
punctures of a minute plant louse, (Aphis 
persicse.) Soft soap and water, or water in 
which tobacco has been soaked, applied with 
a syringe or garden engine, will free the tree 
from the insects for one or two years ; but 
while they disfigure, they do not materially 
injure the tree. 

There are two modes of propagating the 
peach, the one raising from the seed, and the 
other by grafting or breeding. Persons some- 
times eat a fine, large, well flavored peach, and 
plant the seed, fondly imagining that they will 
secure a tree bearing fruit similar to that which 
they have eaten. Occasionally, the experiment 
succeeds, and the experimenter obtains a tree 
bearing just such fruit as he had eaten, or some 
other peach equally as good. Nineteen times 
out of twenty, however, the experiment fails. 
If the peach which had the seed, was borne 
upon a grafted tree, it will likely give him a 
seedling of the nature of the original stock on 
which the graft was made, or something else 
equally worthless, and but rarely will he ob- 
tain a good fruit. The probability of such an 
issue to his experiment is increased by the ab- 
sence of many different varieties in the vicini- 
ty. Thus there is a locality in Caroline county, 
where for many years they have cultivated no- 
thing but Heath peaches, and there the seed of 
the Heath planted, will almost always produce 
a Heath peach tree, which would not be the 
case if other varieties were introduced into 
that neighbourhood. This method of propaga- 
tion is, however, too uncertain to be much in- 
dulged, except by those who are amateurs, and 
willing to plant a thousand trees, if out of that 
32 



thousand they can secure one excellent variety 
before unknown. If there are any of our rea- 
ders who desire to raise new varieties of peach- 
es, this method of propagation is reeommended 
to them. 

The better, because the surer method of pro- 
pagating the peach, is by budding or grafting, 
and for this purpose it matters little what be 
the character of the seed, so they be obtained 
from healthy trees. Oar custom has been for a 
long time, to plant the seeds of the commonest 
and most worthless varieties, such as are often 
found growing about old fields, and on the bor- 
ders of forests in Virginia. From these seeds, 
a hardy stock and root is obtained, upon which 
we then graft such varieties as we wish to cul- 
tivate ; always of course the. very finest and 
best varieties which can be procured. The 
seeds are buried in heaps somewhere in the 
grounds, that the damps of winter may swell 
the kernel and burst the seeds, and early in the 
spring when the seeds are just about bursting, 
we plant them in nursery rows, giving them a 
plentiful dressing of lime. Sometime in the 
month of August they are budded, and the bud 
remains dormant during the winter, and the 
following spring the scion is cut off just above 
the bud, which forces all the sap from the root 
into the bud which then grows off and forms 
the future trees, corresponding of course in its 
character with that of the tree from whence 
the bud was taken. All suckers which make 
their appearance below the bud should be re- 
moved until at least the bud is firmly estab- 
lished. By this method of propagating infalli- 
ble certainty is secured in the cultivation of 
any desired variety, and at the same time a 
more vigorous and hardy stock and root is ob- 
tained for the peach tree, a most desirable con- 
summation. 

The culture of the peach has always been 
found profitable, to say nothing of the pleasure 
which the eating of the fruit affords. On this 
latter point we need say nothing, as all our 
readers are doubtless well acquainted with the 
rich flavour of a ripe peach, and prize it no 
less than we ourselves do. Whether eaten 
alone, or with milk, the peach is a delicacy 
which no man with good taste thinks of despi- 
sing. In tide water Virginia especially, which 
is eminently adapted to the peach culture, it 
must prove highly profitable, as the facilities 



498 



THE SOUTHEEN PLANTEK. 



of communication with the Virginia Springs in- 
crease, and the annual visitants become more 
numerous. Already about Norfolk, it is we 
believe a source of considerable profit to the 
farming community, where the fruit is shipped 
to the Northern markets. In other parts of 
the state, where climate and soil are equally 
favourable, the peach culture has greatly de- 
clined of late, years without any sufficient and 
satisfactory reason, and we have heretofore 
shown that in all orchard products, this among 
others, Virginia is far behind many of her sis- 
ters, whom she should greatly surpass. Many 
objections which once existed to the culture of 
the peach, as the difficulty of procuring good 
and suitable trees, raised in our own climate 
and soils are obviated, since nurseries have 
sprung up within the borders of our own State, 
and trees- of almost every variety, certainly of 
all the better varieties can be had here at home. 
Everything conspires to awaken a new interest 
and zeal in the culture of peaches and it is with 
the hope of adding something to this impulse 
that this hurried sketcli has been written. May 
it accomplish that whereunto it is sent. 



To Make a Lawn in New Land. 

Persons settling at new places often desire to 
have a good sward in front and just about the 
dwelling, but fail to obtain their wishes for 
want of a little knowledge of the art of mak- 
ing lawns. Such individuals often break up 
the land, heavily manure it, sow the grass seed 
in the spring of the year, and then sit down 
with the fond anticipation of having in due 
season a beautiful lawn. Either a crop of 
weeds springs up and destroy the grass, or the 
scorching heat of summer dries it up, and the 
next year, instead of a beautiful green carpet, 
there is about the mansion a barren naked plot 
of earth, and the proprietor gives over his exer- 
tions, satisfied from the result of his experi- 
ment that nothing better was to be expected. 

And assuredly, he is right in the supposition 
that nothing more ought to have been expected 
to result from the measures which he adopted. 
He went to work the wrong way and reaped 
the precise results which might have been con- 
fidently predicted by one better informed than 
himself. He is mistaken however when he 
supposes that it is impossible to have a lawn 
about his dwelling. If he is willing to use the 



proper care and diligence it can yet be effected. 
Not without some labour, trouble and expense 
to be sure, but what is there worth having 
which can be had without these. Nothing; 
and he sadly underates the desirableness and 
value of a handsome lawn who is not willing 
to incur all necessary expense; and to bestow 
all needful labour to secure it. Supposing that 
those for whom we write are disposed to agree 
with us in the views so far expressed, and to be 
sincerely desirous of having a good lawn, we 
shall proceed to set down such suggestions as 
are likely to be useful in the making of a lawn 
in new land. 

Where the dwelling is in the midst of the 
forest, the first step of course is to clear the 
land, of all the superfluous growth, leaving 
only such trees as are desirable for shade and 
ornamental purposes. Just about the house re- 
move every thing, so as to have a clear space 
immediately around it for the sake of ventila- 
tion. The undergrowth is to be taken away 
altogether, except hollies, cedars, and other 
evergreens, and any flowering undergrowth of 
which there are some beautiful specimens, and 
in the clearing the soil, the roots are to be taken 
out carefully. Of course enough trees are to 
be left for shade. In selecting these', persons 
sometimes exhibit execrable taste by retaining 
tall, spindling trees, with bare trunks and a 
mass of foliage covering the tops, which they 
hope to make something of by what is termed 
topping. A very bad practice this, which never 
succeeds well, except with very young trees. 
Instead of doing this, choose young, vigorous 
trees, well shaped and twenty or thirty feet 
high, which after the removal of all the sur- 
rounding growth, come to be in a short time 
handsome shade trees. White oak, ash, pop- 
lar, maple and the like, are the trees to be re- 
served. Instead of leaving the trees scattered 
promiscuously over the whole grounds, let them 
stand in clumps here and there with open 
spaces between where rare ornamental shrubs 
and flowers can be planted, and it is an invari- 
able rule, that the trees shall be in a line with 
either side of the dwelling, leaving the front 
open and clear, so that the view of the house 
to one approaching may not be obstructed. 

Having thus disposed of the trees and un- 
dergrowth, the land is ready to our hand, to 
be converted into a lawn. This cannot be 



( THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



499 



done in a day and the process which we shall 
prescribe will occupy about eighteen months. 
The grand object of the whole process is to get 
land clear of roots and weeds, and without 
the use. of the manure to make the land rich 
enough for the crop of grass. The land is to 
be broken deep and coultered, with a heavy 
coulter, except just about the growing trees 
where the breaking should be done with a grub- 
bing hoe, so as not to injure the roots of such 
trees, and then to be rolled to pulverize all the 
clods, a direction which is to be observed every 
time that the land is ploughed. This first 
ploughing should be done in the spring of the 
year, because then the vegetation is growing 
and any hidden roots which would bring forth 
shoets, being then disturbed will die, whereas 
later in the year they would still be there to 
put up shoots another season. To enrich the 
land we would prescribe, that as early as prac- 
ticable in the spring a crop of buckwheat be 
sown, which about the first of July is to be 
turned in with the plough, and a crop of peas 
be immediately put in. These are also to be 
turned in with the plough by the fifteenth of 
September. This will effect the double good 
of enriching the land and destroying all the 
weeds, admirably preparing the land for the 
reception of the grass seeds. After the peas 
are turned in then roll the land again, grade 
it, and rake it, and then at once sow the grass. 

A word as to the proper manner to sow grass 
seed. Our habit has been to take two lines and 
stretch them across the grounds two feet and a 
half apart, parallel to each other, and then 
beginning at one end to go entirely across, 
scattering the seed from the hand across the 
space enclosed between the lines and passing 
the hand from side to side to the lines, so as to 
scatter seed over every inch of space thus en- 
closed ; and then leaving the line which stands 
next the outer verge of the space thus sown, 
we place the other line two and a half feet fur- 
ther, and so continue to place the lines and 
sow the seed until the entire grounds are gone 
over, and the seed thickly sown. Our reason 
for using this particularly is that where the 
seed are sown broadcast, as with wheat and 
oats, spaces will be left without seed, and noth- 
ing is more unsightly than a lawn with bare 
spots here and there. The ground is now again 
to be rolled to bury the seed. 



The seed of the grass known as the Ken- 
tucky Blue Grass, is that which we would re- 
commend for lawns. 

The grass will appear sometime during the 
fall, generally will cover the surface pretty 
well by Christmas, and be high enough to cut 
some time during the spring, and to keep the 
lawn in good condition it requires to be cut 
through the spring and summer at least once 
in three weeks, and after each cutting to be 
well rolled. The grass should never form seeds 
and the neglect of cutting generally ruins lawns 
which otherwise would have long retained 
their beauty. 

Here then is the routine which we would ad- 
vise in making of a lawn on new land, and 
those who have lands already cleared and which 
have been cultivated will find it to their inter- 
est to follow the same course in making lawns 
about their dwellings. It is a plan which we 
have repeatedly tried, and known tried, and we 
have yet to learn of an instance where it failed 
to give the experimenter a heavily turfed lawn, 
nor do we believe that a failure is at all proba- 
ble where these directions are implicitly fol- 
lowed. Other points scarcely less important, 
as the proper mode of laying off grounds, the 
proper arrangement of walks drives, and the 
best method of preserving lawns will be treated 
in future issues of the Planter. 



Irish Potatoes.— Spring Prices. 

In our article in the May number of the 
Planter, we made some statements concerning 
the prices of Irish Potatoes in this market, 
which seemed to be doubted by a correspon- 
dent from lower Virginia. To put this beyond 
all doubt, we called on several dealers, and the 
sum of our information, gathered from all, 
may be given in the words of George JR. Peake, 
Esq., of this city. He informs us that since 
the last of June he received a consignment of 
potatoes from the North, which he sold at 
$1 75 per bushel, and adds, that the average 
price for seed potatoes every spring is $1 25 
per bushel. This statement we could verify, 
did we deem it material by the testimony of 
every individual engaged in the trade in this 
and the other Yi ginia cities ; but surely that 
is not necessary. Our friends in the country 
may rest assured that all the potatoes which 
they can send to this market next spring, will 



500 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



bring them more than one dollar the bushel ; 
and if the correspondent of the planter can 
afford to raise them at fifty cents, as he says, 
then we advise him to go ahead and cultivate 
them largely, especially as he professes to be 
able to keep them through the winter without 
difficulty. There is no reason why our spring 
markets should not be abundantly supplied 
with home potatoes, instead of those grown at 
the North ; and we trust that another season 
will find our Virginia farmers prepared to fur- 
nish all who want, with seed potatoes. 

_ <- o m » ► 

About Turnips. 

Any time between the tenth and twentieth 
of this month sow a full crop of turnips. Be 
careful first of all, to get good seed, a matter of 
prime importance too much neglected in Vir- 
ginia. In the fall we shall say something on 
the subject of saving turnip seed, but for the 
present forbear. At this time we have to do 
with the sowing. Where small crops are to be 
made they may be put in drills, eighteen in- 
ches apart, sown thinly, and if too thick thinn- 
ed so as to stand about eight inches in the row. 
Where larger crops are to be put in, this me- 
thod is too troublesome, and they are to be 
sown broadcast. Our advice to every farmer 
is, to sow large crops of turnips, for this, 
among many other reasons, that they are easi- 
ly kept during the winter and furnish a most 
excellent forage for cows and cattle generally. 
We advise that the crop be put in fresh land, 
and speak from experience when we say that 
there is no crop which is so largely aided by 
guano, as turnips. We make but little use of 
guano in our operations, except on turnips, and 
such have been the benefits which we have ex- 
perienced from its use, in the cultivation of 
that crop, that we unhesitatingly advise every 
man who sows turnips to use guano. If they 
are'sown when the land is not very wet, we 
would recommend that the land be rolled to 
crush the clods. For an early crop, sow the 
red top turnip ; and for the later, White York 
and Large Norfolk, 

Cucumbers for Pickling. 

In planting cucumbers for pickling, lay off 
the land with a plough in rows, about three feet 
apart, open it very deep and drop in the drill 
lome good, old, well rotted stable manure. — 
With th§ coulter then mix the earth and ma- 



nure well together, and then ridge up the earth 
over the drill. Plant the seed five or six inches 
apart and one and a half or two inches deep, 
and so let them stand until the vines begin to 
run. The reason for planting so thick is, that 
they are often attacked by insects which de- 
stroy more or less of them, and when the bugs 
or fiies do attack them use lime or soot, or to- 
bacco trash, whichever may be most convenient, 
which is to be put on early in the morning, 
while the dew is on the vines. When the vines 
begin to run, thin them so as to leave them 
standing about eighteen inches apart. The ob- 
vious advantage of this mode of planting is 
that the vines can be worked with much more 
ease than if they are put in separate hills. 

Last year we advised this mode through the 
Planter, and a gentleman in Henrico, who had 
always pursued the plan of planting in hills, 
and wh6 constantly failed partially or wholly, 
adopted our plan and had such success that he 
has tried it again this year, and pointed out to 
us the other day a large plat recently planted, 
expressing himself at the same time as delight- 
ed with the arrangement. 



Planting Celery. 

This is the proper season for planting celery 
in the beds, concerning which a few sugges- 
tions may not be amiss. 

Choose a spot of rich, open ground, and lay 
it off into beds four feet wide. Dig the becis a 
spade deep, throwing the earth thus dug out, 
equally on either side of the beds upon the 
alleys. Then lay over the bottom of the beds 
old, well-rotted manure to the depth of four or 
five inches, which is to be incorporated 
thoroughly with the earth of the beds, and 
then over it to be thrown an inch or an inch 
and a half of earth from the alleys. Plant 
five rows in each bed, equally distant and eight 
inches apart in the rows, and then keep the 
plants free from weeds until they are ready for 
earthing. They are only to be planted in a wet 
season, and when the plants are drawn from 
the plant beds, clip the tops to five or six 
inches, and shorten the roots to about three 
inches. This is one mode of planting, and 
that which we prefer, for two reasons ; first 
because the plants are more easily preserved 
in winter, and secondly, because more celery 
can be raised on the same space. 

There is, however, another method, which is 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



501 



to plant them in single rows or trenches, from 
eight to twelve inches apart in the row. When 
this is done, however, the hill is necessarily 
narrow, and the frost strikes through it more 
readily and injures the plant. 

The directions for earthing will be given in a 
future number. 



For the Planter. 

Fruit Trees. 

Sycamore Isle, July 1857. 
This seems to be an age in which there is a 
manifest desire, on the part of us farmers, to 
add to our comforts in every way. And there 
are few things so much neglected as raising 
fruit, which is one of the luxuries of life. I 
have known so many unsuccessful attempts to 
raise orchards, by loss of trees, that I have de- 
termined to give my experience, as I am now 
raising the second one, and have learned by 
former experience how to plant successfully, 
not having lost one tree in a hundred of my 
last planting. I prefer the trees selected from 
the nursery of the most rapid growth, and two 
years old ; that is, the graft having grown two 
years on the stock. Let the land be prepared 
as for any hoe crop. And in the latter part of 
February, or 1st of March, dig the holes to put 
the trees in, about two and a half or three feet 
in diameter, and from fifteen to eighteen inches 
deep. Let the entire soil be thrown on one 
side of the hole, and the clay or subsoil on the 
other. After the digging is completed, im- 
merse the roots of the tree in a tub of water. 
Throw back about three inches of soil in the 
hole. Then place the tree in the centre, sink- 
ing the top roots in the loose soil, and carefully 
spread the lateral ones at about the angle at 
which they grew. Shovel back the soil until 
the roots are all covered about an inch. Then 
press down the soil firmly. By this time the 
hole is rather more than half full. Then put 
in a layer of leached ashes and chip manure, 
that is well rotted, about an inch thick — cover 
with clay for three inches. Afterwards another 
layer of manure and clay mixed, until the hole 
is full enough, leaving it sufficiently concave to 
hold the rain water, and draw it towards the 
tree — packing the earth sufficiently to steady 
it ; and if the tree is large insert a stake on the 
northwest side, confining the tree to it by any 
thing which will not fret the bark. This is 
sufficient until about the 20th May ; then ma- 
nure well around the tree with any well rotted 
manure ; and if the land is poor or the clay 
hard and stiff, put about a quart of lime to each 
tree, mixed with the manure, and hoe it in 
well. Nothing more is necessary the first sea- 
son but to keep down the weeds around the 
trees until fall. Then in the month of Novem- 
ber mulch freely with tobacco stalks. In the 
spring a small quantity of dirt may be thrown 
upon the stalks. 



Cultivate the land annually in peas, and con- 
tinue to mulch every fall or winter until the 
trees are strong and bearing, which, if well at- 
tended to, they will begin to do the third year. 
Never let any thing be planted nearer the trees 
than from three to five feet. Mr. Jones has 
said all that is necessary about the caterpillar. 
But there is a kind of wood louse which some- 
times infest the bark, and maybe easily detect- 
ed by its becoming rough and having an old 
appearance. This can be entirely prevented by 
washing the body of the tree with ley. Apply 
it, as you would whitewash, with a brush. If 
these directions are followed, no one will be 
without apples, if he keeps a good fence and 
permits no kind of stock to enter his orchard 
until the trees are grown, then hogs are bene- 
ficial, and the fruit will do them no harm, if 
the farmer has not the time or inclination to 
gather it. Wm. M. Woods. 



Transplanting Strawberries in Summer," 

In reply to inquiries for the best mode of 
transplanting strawberries in summer, we fur- 
nish a few brief hints. 

The best time is always early in spring, as, 
at that time, we have only to set out the plants 
with ordinary care, for all to grow. They will 
bear abundantly the second season, and if kept 
clean and cultivated, for two or three years af- 
terwards. If allowed to run the season of 
transplanting, and not cultivated except in the 
early part of the season, they will give a full 
crop the next year, but not afterwards. Some 
good cultivators think it best and most econom- 
ical of labor to plant a new bed every year, and 
to let the bed run full of plants, foi only one 
year's bearing. They find it easier to plant 
out a new bed in spring, than to cultivate the 
old one through the season. The crop is not, 
however, so fine, when thus treated. 

Transplanted immediately after bearing, and 
while the plants are somewhat exhausted and 
consequently in a partially dormant state, straw- 
berries will do well, and afford as good a crop 
next season, as by spring transplanting, but 
more care and labor are required. The ground 
is first to be prepared by properly enriching it. 
and making it clean and mellow. The amount 
of manuring must depend greatly on the pre- 
vious character and condition of the soil. If 
naturally fertile, and if it has been well previ- 
ously manured, little need be applied ; if not 
largely composed of vegetable matter a quantity 
of leaf mould or well prepared pent will be 
found very useful. Where much manure is 
needed, a compost with a large proportion of 
such vegetable matter is always best. 

The plants should be selected from the young- 
est well rooted runners of the previous year. 
They should be lifted out with a spade, and the 
earth shaken off, and not pulled out, as is often 
done to the. injury of the roots. All the fully 
expended leaves are to be clipped off, leaving 



502 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



only the small, half-open ones. The roots are 
then to be dipped in mud made in a pan or pail 
for this purpose, thick enough to leave a coat- 
ing on them about the fourth of an inch. They 
are then to be transplanted, spreading out the 
fibres as much as may be convenient, and tak- 
ing care not to cover the crown. If the soil be 
dry, they should all be watered heavily, and an 
inch of mellow earth drawn over the watered 
surface, to fill up the settled earth. A mulch- 
ing is then to be applied about an inch or an 
inch and a half thick, of fine, partly decayed 
stable manure. This will prevent the surface 
from drying and becoming hard and crusted ; 
and if watering should afterwards be necessary, 
which however can only happen in extremely 
dry weather, this mulch will keep the surface 
moist and in proper condition. Treated in this 
manner, all or nearly all the plants will live, 
and furnish an abundant crop next year. 

Country Gentleman. 



Time to Gather and How to Keep Pears. 

One of the most important points in the man- 
agement of pears, is to gather them at the 
proper time. Summer pears should be gather- 
ed at least ten days before they are ripe ; au- 
tumn pears at least a fortnight, and winter 
pears as nearly as possible about the time the 
trees stop growing. If left on until the com- 
mencement of the fall of the leaf, they are 
worthless. A pear ripened on the tree is gen- 
erally not fit to be eaten. The usual way to 
determine when pears are fit to be taken in the 
house to ripen, is to lift them up on the tree ; 
if upon raising them up, they part readily from 
the stalk, they then can be picked off. Never 
shake down pears ; hand pick all, standing on 
steps for the purpose. They should be light, 
and so contrived that the ladder may be disen- 
gaged from the back at pleasure, fastening to- 
gether by a bolt at the top ; at the top should 
be a broad step to stand on, with room for the 
basket to hold the fruit. Have, in beginning to 
gather, hand baskets of different sizes, and also 
large baskets or hampers, and wheelbarrows. 
At the bottoms of the large baskets place some 
perfectly dry short fine grass or hay, from sum- 
mer mowings, kept clean and dry for this pur- 
pose. You can also tell as a mark when the 
fruit is ripe, when it begins to fall (not wind- 
fall, or from the caterpiller.) If the fruit comes 
off without any force used, it is presumed to be 
ripe enough ; but sickness, &c, of the trees 
may make it seem riper than in fact it is. 

If the fruit be in the least bruised, it will not 
keep ; therefore the person on the steps must 
pick it carefully and lay it in the basket, and 
empty the small baskets into the large. When 
the fruit begins to fall itself, cover the ground 
under the tree with soft grass. Those that 
drop should be used first, as they will not keep 
near as long as those picked by hand. 

In the fruit room lay dry soft grass on the 



floor, and the fruit gently from the basket in 
heaps on the grass. To sweat the fruit, cover 
it two or three inches thick on the top with 
some of the grass ; the heaps may be two or 
three feet high. Let them lie in heaps two 
weeks ; then open and turn them over, Aviping 
each pear with a dry cloth, to be frequently 
dried during the process. The heaps then re- 
main eight or ten days more, covered as before, 
then wipe the fruit and barrel or place in bas- 
kets, as they will sell better in bushel baskets, 
and they are then ready to be sent to market. 
Always gather fruit in dry weather, and when 
the dew is off, and not in the evening after the 
dew has begun to fall. Air should sometimes 
be admitted in the fruit-room. 

Much of the above is the English practice of 
gathering pears, and highly recommended by 
Mr. Forsyth, the practical English nurseryman. 
The most perfect way of keeping pears, is to 
pack in earthen jars, each pear separately wrap- 
ped in soft paper ; put dried bran in the jar, 
then a layer of fruit, then a little more bran, 
and so on alternately; when full, gently shake 
the jar, fill up with bran and' paper at top of 
all ; cover with a bladder to perfectly exclude 
ascession of air, then fit on the cover of the 
jar, and place in a dry room. Boxes made 
tight are also very good for packing away win- 
ter pears ; place a layer of cotton-batten at the 
bottom of the box, then a layer of pears wrap- 
ped in soft wrapping paper, then another layer 
of pears, then cotton, &c, on to the top ; finish 
off with cotton, double sheets, and nail tightly 
down the lid, and you can then have some fine 
pears for New-Year. 

The French pack winter pears in small boxes, 
round or square. The bottoms of the boxes 
and the sides, they cover with dry moss or soft 
paper to absorb the moisture, and lay them in 
layers, the largest at the bottom, and fill the 
interstices with dry moss or paper. They are 
so tightly packed that not one presses upon 
another, and no movement can take place 
among them. The moss and paper which sep- 
arate them, absorb all moisture, and if one de- 
cays it cannot affect the others. Pears may 
also be well preserved in new barrels, with the 
interstices filled with powdered charcoal ; they 
must be kept in about 40° temperature. 

Downing says — " Many sorts of pears that 
are comparatively tough, if ripened in a cool 
apartment, become very melting, buttery and 
juicy, when allowed to mature in a room kept 
at a temperature of 60 or 70°." He also 
writes — " So important is the ripening of pears 
in the house, that most amateurs of this fruit 
find it to their advantage to have a small room . 
set apart and fitted up with shelves in tiers, to 
be used solely as a fruit room. Mr. Hovey 
states " he keeps his winter pears as he keeps 
his apples — in barrels in the cellar, and suc- 
ceeds well. Pears can be placed also for pre- 
serving in tin boxes. Winter pears will gene- 
rally sweat after the boxes have been filled a 



THE SOUTHER NT PLANTER. 



503 



few days ; they should be then taken out and 
wiped dry. When the weather becomes cold, 
the boxes should be removed to a dry cellar. I 
am convinced that pears will ripen better in a 
dark closet than in a light room. I submit the 
above numerous ways of keeping pears to your 
subscribers, and they can themselves decide 
this season which is the best, by giving all a 
fair trial. And the winter varieties will come 
very acceptable to the New-Year visitors at 
your homes, and form a splendid dish on the 
holiday festive board. T. S. C. Clermont, N. Y. 




THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 



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their Offices by Subscribers. 

RUFFIN & AUGUST, Proprietors. 

Office : No. 153, Corner Main and Twelfth Streets. 



" Speculations on the Price of Wheat.'' 
In the following article from the U. States 
Economist, we find the editor, Mr. KettelPs, 
opinion, as far as he can form one, on the price 
of wheat. He has in that article stated briefly, 
but forcibly, the whole case, and we recom- 
mend its perusal. In one respect we differ 
with him. We think his conclusions in regard 
to the quantity of wheat made in the United 
States are erroneous in making the crop too 
large. North of North Carolina the same win- 
ter and spring causes that reduced the yield of 
wheat in Virginia, and to which we alluded in 
our last issue, were as operative as here. South 
of that, the late spring frosts that killed so 
much cotton and corn must have done some 
damage. In the West, the winter was too se- 
vere for the wheat to have rallied to the extent 
of the assumed increase. 

The following figures, extracted into the 
Economist, from the New York Courier, will be 
instructive, as showing the value of city esti- 
mates of country produce : 

It is estimated from the present harvest that 
Ohio will produce and give as a surplus as fol- 
lows : 

Crop of Wheat, 1857, 
" 1856, 



OHIO. 



25,000,000 bushels. 
18,000,000 



Excess, 
Crop of Corn, 1857, 
" 185G, 

Excess of Corn, 
Wheat, 



7,000,000 
85,000,000 
60,000,000 

25,000,000 

7,000,000 



Total excess, 32,000,000 

Or in tonnage, 900,000 tons. 

Thus, on the assumption of good crops, there 
will be, in round numbers, one million of tons 
in the State of Ohio in excess of 1856, and the 
larger portion to come East. The surplus will 
be equal to what was sent East last year, added 
to this excess. 

Now it will be found that these figures as- 
sume an excess of forty per cent, or very nearly 
half as much again increase ; which is an im- 
possibility. 

To shew, however, the difficulties of arriving 
at a correct conclusion even from the best in- 
formed, we may state that on meeting a gen- 
tleman just from Albemarle a few days ago, 
we learned from him that the wheat crop of 
that county was the best ever made. Five 
minutes afterwards another gentleman from 



504 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



the same county and neighborhood told us, 
when we congratulated him on the good crop, 
that it was about the meanest harvest within 
the memory of the oldest inhabitant. And so 
of other places. In such conflict of testimony 
we find it difficult to form an opinion, and not 
very easy to credit newspaper statements. — 
Conclusions based on other circumstances than 
testimony alone may be formed with some hope 
of general accuracy, but exact knowledge is 
unattainable. To those circumstances the 
Economist has referred. 

But of this the farmers may be assured, that 
they will get a pretty good price for their wheat 
throughout the year. It is an old saying that 
it takes two good crops to fill up the gap made 
by one bad one ; and the general failures of last 
year authorize us to apply the maxim to the 
present time. 

Much depends on the English harvest, of 
which no man here can tell any more than the 
farmer of our country can tell of his own crop 
within six weeks of cutting it. There, as here, 
the weather just preceding, daring, and just 
after harvest, will make all the difference be- 
tween a very good and a very bad crop ; and as 
their harvest alone consumes a whole month, 
and their grain ripens more slowly than ours, 
they are to that extent more subject to disas- 
ters. With this fact in view, we do not think 
it arrogant to say, that no man's opinion of the 
price of wheat in the month of October next 
is worth a groat. 

Two things only we know : 1st. That wheat 
cannot fall greatly in any short time ; 2d. that 
it cannot drop down below its natural level of 
price for at least a year to come. That level is 
the value of the currency : and as that has 
been depreciated to the amount of twenty-five 
per cent, wheat of course must go up to that 
extent. So that if $1 was the natural price of 
wheat five years ago, it would now, under a 
similar proportionate supply, command $1 25. 
But as, under the influx of gold from Califor- 
fornia and Australia, a still further deprecia- 
tion may be confidently expected, we may look 
for a corresponding increase in the price of 
wheat. 

Except under the depression of an extraor- 
ry supply, or a period of general bankruptcy, 
we never expect to see wheat sell again as low 
as $1 25. 



New York, July 15, 1857. 
The accounts all over the Union agree that 
the wheat crop of the United States is to be 
large, and from abroad the same news is con- 
firmed down to the last dates, when the harvest 
of the south of France had commenced. That 
is to say, in round numbers, the agricultural 
labor of France, the United States and Great 
Britain, will receive a value of at least $250,- 
000,000 in wheat alone, as the consequence of 
a fine season. All other crops promise equally 
well. The most important at the North, hay 
particularly, will ensure cheap food. These 
circumstances point to a very large addition to 
the world's capital. Labor has been employed 
in turning floating capital into fixedness at a 
time when the annual supply of floating capi- 
tal was diminished by bad harvests, alarge num- 
ber of men were engaged consuming food and 
material in the Crimea, fighting and building 
forts. Still other thousands, were employed, 
consuming food and material by converting 
produce, iron and wood into railroads, while 
for several seasons this process was going on 
the harvest was short. In three successive 
years France lost in wheat by bad seasons 
$40,000,000 per annum. Her losses in vines 
and silk and inundations were as large, and 
losses in other countries were large. This 
year the tables have turned, the expenditure is 
smaller, and the products of the earth immense- 
ly greater. The question now arises what are 
we to do with our surplus quantities ? It will 
be found, however, that great as are the sup- 
plies the demands upon the United States, of 
course at lower prices, will be equal to those 
supplies. The exports from the United States 
of wheat and flour for several years were as 
follows, reducing the flour to wheat : 

1854. 1855. 

16,189,008 1,344,975 

3,882,481 42,785 

8,077,106 5,964,186 



To Great Britain, 

To France, 

To other countries, 



Total bushels, 28,148,595 7,351,946 



1856. 1857. 

10,845,617 - 11,557,364 

6,565,429 5,019,381 

15,257,744 16,000,000 



To Great Britain, 

To France, 

To other countries, 



Total bushels, £2,668,790 32,576,745 

It is thus apparent that although the West 
Indies, Canada and South America sustain a 
regular demand upon the United States for 
wheat, yet the sum of the demand is a good 
deal effected by the state of business in Great 
Britain. We now observe that the wheat mar- 
ket of Great Britain has been as follows for 
several years, premising the quantities given 
in the table as British wheat " sold," are the 
quantities reported as sold in the 240 towns, 
the sales of which regulate the official aver- 
ages, as follows : 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



505 



SALES AND IMPORTS AND PRICES OF WHEAT IN 
GREAT BRITAIN. 



Sales, 
qurs. 

1853, 4,560,912 

1854, 3,913,257 

1855, 3,211,786 

1856, 5,046,736 

1857, 5 mos, 2,159,700 
1856, 5 " 1,136,810 



Imported, Price, 

qurs. s. d. 

6,235,860 53 3 

4,473,085 72 5 

3,211,766 71 10 

5,207,147 73 2 

1,118,279 56 Q 

1,444,360 75 



The crop of 1853 in England was injured to 
an extent estimated at the round number of 
7,000,000 qurs.— say 56,000,000 bushels. This 
deficit added to the average annual import made 
a quantity of 96,000,000 bushels, requisite to 
supply the ordinary consumption. The stocks 
on hand from old crops, foreign and domestic, 
suffered, too, with an import of h\ millions for 
the wants of 1854. The stocks were, however, 
exhausted at the close of the year, although 
the high prices had checked consumption. The 
crops of 1856 were good, and with a moderate 
importation has caused prices to fall back near- 
ly to those of 1853. The French crop last year 
was deficient 21,000,000 bushels, and this year, 
in both countries, the growing crops promise 
well. If we now look at the leading sources 
whence England has drawn her wheat for the 
years above enumerated, we shall form an idea 
of the sources of present supplies. 

IMPORTS OF WHEAT INTO GREAT BRITAIN. 

1853. 1854. 



France, 
Russia, 
Prussia, 

Denmark, 
Turkey & 
Egypt, 

United States 
Others. 



qurs. 

97,235 

1,010,701 

1,144,202 

292 915 
Danube, 476',460 
357,903 
713,182 
762,132 



qurs. 
143.047 
546,841 

672,842 
248,451 
287,798 
302,905 
417,607 
816,737 



4,915,430 3,431,227 



1856. 

qurs. 
France, 10,007 

Russia, 759,459 

Prussia, 222,681 

Denmark, 177,216 

Mecklenburg, 62,625 

Turkey & Danube, 273,691 
Egypt, 534,603 

United States, 1,279,150 
Others, 743,406 



1857. 4 mos. 
qurs. 

77,027 

81,038 

64,798 

49,376 

14,581 
101,609 
273,061 

44,784 



4,062,831 

FLOUR. 



764,279 



1853. 
United States, cwt. 3,043,107 
France, 854,730 

4,621,506 



1854. 
2,510,910 
219,283 





1856. 


1857. 


United States, cwt. 


2.892,519 


723,631 


Spain, 


460,823 




France, 


69,841 




Others, 




60,867 



3,646,505 



3,900,259 784,498 

France, formerly an exporter, is now become 
habitually an importer, the extent of the de- 
mand depending upon her harvest. This year 
her wants will be small, while the crops of Rus- 
sia, Egypt and Germany, which the table indi- 
cates as the chief rivals of the United States in 
supplying England, will be good under the 
stimulus of the high prices that ruled last year. 
That the stocks are small, is chiefly the cause 
that prices are as well sustained as they are up 
to this moment. England received in 1856, a 
larger quantity than ever before, from the U. 
States, and she paid for it good prices. This 
year she will be able to buy her supplies at a 
low figure, because the producing countries are 
now competitors for sales. The countries of 
Russia, the Danube Provinces, Egypt and Sy- 
ria, over the supplies from which the war ex- 
erted so much influence, are now recovered 
from those effects, offering a surplus, stimula- 
ted by high prices and previous disasters at 
the same time. France, who was the leading 
customer last year for those Mediterranean 
supplies, will, after harvest, which, in the sou- 
thern departments, has already commenced, 
have ample supplies of her own. In England, 
as seen in the above table, these sales of Eng- 
lish wheat from the last harvest, of home 
growth, which sufficed in the first five months 
of the present year to cause a fall of 20d. 
per quarter in price in the face of a diminished 
import on the eve of a good crop coming in, 
promises well. There is, however, still room 
for disaster to the crops of England, and, inas- 
much as the stocks are so small everywhere, 
the smallest disaster would cause an active ad- 
vance in prices. Freights are very low, both 
internal and external, the railroads having re- 
duced fares in many cases on the great routes. 



Morrison's Reaper. 

We would not give much for the utility of 
an ordinary reaper trial, which bears about 
the same relation to actual field work that a 
holiday drill does to a real battle. But of this 
more hereafter, when we come to comment, as 
we suppose we shall do, on the account of the 
trial of reapers held by the United States Ag- 
ricultural Society. 

The test to which a machine of this kind is 
submitted in going through a protracted har- 
vest, would be, we presume, much more satis- 
factory to practical men ; and for that class we 
propose to notice very briefly the trial, to which 



506 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



Morrison's Reaper was subjected under our 
personal inspection, upon our own estate, and 
at his request. 

As we have before stated in our account of 
Caldwell's Reaper, which we tried last sum- 
mer, the farm we occupy is very level, the 
inequalities in its surface, consisting of very 
slight, and in some cases, scarcely perceptible 
knolls, disposed with great irregularity of dis- 
tribution and outline over a series of flats 
which, until drained, were shallow ponds 
during the winter. To drain such lands, which 
are a bed of impervious clay of from 20 to 30 
feet in thickness, requires ditches, grips, or 
cross-drains, and deep bed furrows, arranged, 
generally, with a view to the natural fall, but 
sometimes, by deeper cuts, through slight 
elevations where particular considerations ren- 
dered it advisable. In addition to these, catch, 
drains, somewhat after the style of hillside 
ditches, but dammed on the lower side of each 
intersecting bed furrow, serve to direct the de- 
scending current, and the ooze of the water 
table, from the flat below. 

Some of the land is ploughed in beds twen- 
ty feet ; some in beds of thirty feet : and the 
depth of the water furrow, as compared with 
the crown of the ridge is, in the 20 foot beds, 
12 inches ; in the 30 foot beds 15 inches by 
actual measurement. The depth of the cross- 
drains is 20 inches. But as the sides of the 
cross-drains have been graded off by plough 
and scraper, or by the hoe, and each bed fur- 
row empties directly into the cross drain with- 
out the intervention of the barbarous " head 
bed," it follows, that at each point of such 
entrance, the bed furrow itself must have the 
depth of the cross drain. It was on such 
land, thus minutely described, that each may 
understand the thoroughness of test — that we 
operated Morrison's Reaper. 

It is our principal to cut with, and not 
across, the bed furrows, up on one side of a 
bed and down another, crossing the beds at 
the end of the parallelogram, without cutting. 
But in very short lands, where too much time 
would be lost, we do sometimes cut around ; 
and, of course, across the beds. In this way, ' 
and in crossing the various drains of all kinds, 
which cut into the parallelograms in all possi- 
ble ways, a reaper must repeatedly cross every 
depression in its progress through the field. 



It is obvious, that in crossing them where the 
depth varies from 12 to 20 inches, there must 
be a tremendous strain on the whole ma- 
chinery ; and that many a reaper cannot stand 
it for two days, whilst, from the very construc- 
tion of some of them, they will be racked to 
pieces in a few hours. 

It is further obvious, that if there be no 
means of shifting the balance of the reaper* 
that the dead' pull, unavoidably incurred as it 
chucks into the drains, will be terrible to the 
horses, and very painful to the raker, jaring 
every muscle of the one and jolting every fibre 
of the other, and galling both, though in differ- 
ent places. We know it because we have 
tried it. 

Now we have to say that we subjected Mr. 
Morrison's Reaper to this kind of test, and 
that it stood it well. On the ninth day the 
crank, which drives the knife, broke, — just the 
accident which occurred to Caldwell's Reaper 
on the sixth day ; and that was owing partly to 
our mismanagement in not inspecting the ma- 
chine as closely as we should have done, but 
mainly to the fact that the iron of the crank 
was not good metal — it had a flaw in it. Put- 
ting in the other knife at once, it went another 
round, and bent that at the same place that the 
other broke at ; when, on examining, we found 
that three small screws at bottom had been 
broken off, letting the crank down below the 
plane of its motion, and splitting off a small 
part of the machine. With two butt hinges 
and a few screws, we repaired the machine, 
straightened the crank, and got it to work 
again in two hours from the occurrence of 
the accident, when the journal box in which 
the crank works, (and which costs 25 cents,) 
broke from wear. Substituting another for that, 
the crank again broke, from defective iron, at 
the point where it was screwed to the journal, 
and we laid the machine aside, because we 
were nearly done harvest, and finished with 
Hussey's Reaper. 

This was all the accident it met with in 
nine days ; and not until the ninth day. 

We believe the average duration of harvest 
is ten days ; and we think it safe and fair to 
assume that the wear and tear of a reaper, as 
we use it, may be estimated at the double of 
what it would be on other lands. If this be so, 
then this reaper would have gone without acci- 
dent through very nearly two other harvests 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



507 



on other lands, a feat which none of them is 
believed to have yet accomplished. In our 
own experience with Hussey's Reaper, which 
we deem one of the very best, we have, in a less 
time of cutting, broke two bolts and so strained 
the reaper that we had to send it to the shop ; 
and we do not regard the accidents to Morri- 
son's as at all material. We mention them, as 
bound in fairness to do, even at the risk of 
injuring the reputation of the maker; but we 
repeat, we do not regard them as material : and 
we will give our reasons. The great point in a 
reaper is that its principles of construction 
shall be right, and that accidents shall not 
occur in con'sequence of faults in that particu- 
lar. But the accident in question did not 
Occur from any such defect. Another point is, 
that as " no machine is stronger than its 
weakest part," that part shall be easily 
reparable, and shall not, in a breakage, involve 
any great delay or expense in repair or renewal. 
In this case the boxes, which are subject to wear 
and tear, cost only' twenty-five cents, so that 
the cost of two during a harvest will not in- 
volve any expense. The crank, if made of 
more ductile iron, is not so apt to break, but 
only to bend, which can be easily remedied, or 
if it shall break, it can be repaired without 
stopping the machine, the extra blade being 
substituted, whilst that is undergoing repair. 
The whole strain of a reaper comes on the 
crank, which is yet necessarily the weakest 
part, if the whole is properly constructed. It 
is well, therefore, that if it does give way, it 
shall involve no serious loss or delay. Still we 
do not anticipate an accident necessarily to this 
reaper ; and think that by the use of better iron 
and the substitution of an extra journal box at 
the right time, it may, and will, if properly con- 
structed, go through a harvest without liability 
to any accident that may not with as much 
probability stop any other reaper. 

In other points of its construction, except 
the knives, this machine is all that we could 
desire. The castings wore remarkably well ; 
and not a bolt was broken or strained. The 
wood work we thought particularly strong. 
The joints are as close now as they were the 
day we took it to the field, and seemed entirely 
insensible to the jaring they underwent. 
This point we deem particularly important. 
Castings can be replaced more easily than 
timber in a reaper; and ought therefore to be 



stronger in this point than in any other. We 
think this reaper has that merit. 

It works more easily to the horse than any 
reaper we have tried, or seen tried, except 
Caldwell's, and it is beyond all question the 
easiest to the raker. A very simple contri" 
vance, which we cannot explain without a 
diagram, shifted the balance, (or ballast), of the 
reaper, adjusting it instantaneously to the 
great irregularities of surface over which it 
passed, thereby relieving the horses of a good 
deal of jar and dead pull, relieving the ma- 
chine of much strain, and maki-ng the raker's 
seat comparatively easy. It is only necessary 
in proof of this, to state that our raker rejected 
all offers to spell him, and kept his place, with 
but little fatigue, through the whole harvest. 

We are sorry that the machine was provided 
with cutters of so soft a temper, that we had 
to sharpen them with a mill 5aw file, and alter- 
nate them once a day. Thi3 was a shameful 
oversight or defect in the manufacturer, who, 
if he knew his business, must have known that 
he had no right to send such cutters out with 
a reaper. In other respects they were unex- 
ceptionable ; and are so constructed as to cut 
without clogging in damp or heavy wheat. 
We tried it once after a rain, and frequently in 
heavy dews — commencing generally at about 
4 o'clock in the morning — and do not see how 
it can clog when the cutters are sufficiently 
sharp. 

In cutting over the furrows, or along them 
on wet land, we found no stoppage to occur 
from clogging the wheels with dirt or mud, as 
is the case with Hussey's and several others. 

There was a slight defect in delivering the 
grain, which gathered too much at the out- 
side end of the knife, but this can be easily 
remedied. 

As to the principles on which this machine 
is constructed, we deem it unnecessary to say 
anything. Unless a reaper be made on the 
simplest plan it is impossible to describe it ac- 
curately except by diagrams, which we cannot 
give. It is somewhat complicated, (though not 
more so than several other popular machines,) 
but not the less valuable on that account. If the 
simplest machine breaks in an important part, it 
is useless for that harvest ; and that is all that 
can be said of a more complex one. If the com- 
plication amounts to a gain of power or ease, 



508 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



strength or durability, one can well afford to 
study it out and understand it. We think 
these points are all secured by Mr. Morrison, 
who, to a natural mechanical genius adds a 
thorough theoretical and scientific knowledge 
of mechanical principles. The main point 
with the farmer is, not is the thing simple, 
but will, it do f 

The machine itself will be exhibited at the 
next fair of the Va. State Agricultural Society 
just as it left the field, and every one can then 
see, not only the condition of a Reaper which 
has " been through the wars," but the point 
at which the accident occurred. 

As to cutting capacity, we can only say that 
we cut over in one day twenty acres of land, 
and with a force to have fully manned the 
reaper, could, we presume, have cut over twen- 
ty-five. We see no reason why it should not 
easily have cut an acre every thirty minutes. 



Some were travelling from stalk to stalk ; and 
others, being a very large proportion of the 
whole, were protected by the clods and crevices 
of the soil. These all missed the douche ; and, 
when we inspected the plants in the afternoon, 
were quite lively, and sucking the soaped corn 
just as busily as ever, particularly at the foot 
of the stalk, where the greatest part of the 
solution had settled. We infer, therefore, that 
whilst soap-suds will kill the chinch bug, that 
it costs too much to apply it. What it might 
effect if applied as they leave the wheat field 
we cannot undertake to say. It may be worth 
a trial, but we are not sanguine of its virtues 
then. 

Should any other' gentleman have made a 
more favorable experiment we will gladly pub- 
lish it. 



Chinch Bug. 

In the last number of the Planter we took 
leave of the chinch bugs, and confided them 
to the friendly ants. We are sorry to declare 
what so many of our readers feelingly know, 
that these famine breeders have re-appeared in 
increased numbers, and are again doing great 
damage to the corn, though the wheat escaped 
them almost entirely, and the oats measurably. 

It was stated hereabouts that soap-suds would 
destroy them; and that Scotch snuff, was 
also death to them. We have not tried the 
snuff, though others have, and, we think, with 
but little effect. 

We stated a year or so ago, at the in- 
stance of a subscriber, that soap-suds would 
destroy them : but we were so doubtful of the 
full efficacy of the remedy, that we did not try 
it. Within a few days the reports in its 
favour, made through the columns of the Dis- 
patch, were so favourable that we were induced 
to test it. We are sorry to say that the reme- 
dy, as we applied it, was not very successful. 
Making a strong solution of soap — a pound to 
ten gallons of water, we applied a pint and a 
half to each hill, at a cost of nine dollars per 
acre, exclusive of the labour of application, 
itself no light matter. All the bugs that the 
water touched died — a single drop seemed to 
sicken them ; and three drops killed them 
dead. But the trouble was to apply it to all. 



The Upperville Union Club for the Im- 
provement of Horses. 

The duties of the harvest field prevented us 
from attendiDg the late exhibition of the above 
club, which took place, for the second time, on 
the fifteenth of June last. We regret exceed- 
ingly that we could not be present. 

We have several times urged the Farmers of 
Virginia to form just such clubs for the im- 
provement of their various breeds of animals ; 
but, so far as we know, this is the first success- 
ful attempt of the kind. We do not pretend 
to ascribe the formation of the club to the adop- 
tion of any views of our own: the gentlemen 
who compose it, are too public spirited and too 
intelligent to need any promptings from us on 
such a subject. But it is very naturally a 
pleasure to us to see such gentlemen not only 
concurring in the propriety of our opinions, 
but carrying out the plan to a successful issue. 
Indeed, the pleasure would be enhanced by 
knowing that their action was independent of 
our suggestions. 

Their object, which the title of their associ- 
tion sufficiently expresses, is a very laudable 
one ; and no locality offers a fairer field for its 
accomplishment than the counties of Fauquier 
and Loudoun. They have already fine stock 
there ; taken as a whole, perhaps, the best in 
the State, and better than can be found any- 
where else except in Kentucky. But it may 
be improved. ' 

To one thing we would beg leave particularly 
to direct their attention, the improvement of sad- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



509 



die horses. The large infusion of the Sir Ar- 
chie blood into the racing stock of Virginia 
made sad work of saddle horses ; the Eclipse 
cross, as in Boston, made matters still worse ; 
and the blood horse is now considered unfit 
to ride. Then the introduction of the unmanly 
custom of driving in buggies, and the love of 
fast trotters has nearly completed the ruin. 
We speak with some knowledge on this sub- 
ject, for we have been looking out, diligently, 
for six months for an animal of this description, 
and, except an old hack in the town of Man- 
chester, we have neither seen nor heard of a 
first rate saddle horse. The breeds of horses 
for quick draft, and for heavier work, are good 
enough ; but the style and configuration of 
that class are totally different from what is 
required for saddle horses, which seem to be 
going out of fashion. Like a great many of 
the good things of old Virginia, they areyield- 
jing to new fangled notions. 

We hope our friends of the Upperville Club 
will bear this in mind. 

The officers of the club for the year past 
were 

R. H. Dulany, President. 

George Ayres, Vice President. 

H. A. Hall, Sec. and Treasurer. 

There are three classes of stock : quick draft, 
heavy draft, and saddle horses. The premium 
list gives twenty dollars for the best yearling 
and five dollars for the second best in each 
class, and the same premiums for the two and 
three year olds, making an aggregate of two 
hundred and twenty five dollars. 

At the exhibition just held, these 'premiums 
were awarded as follows. 

JUDGES. 

George Burwell, J. W. Armstrong, 

— Edmunds, Samuel Rector, 

U. Byrnes. 

RIDING STOCK. 

1st Class. — Yearlings. 
1st Premium. A Tom Colt. Jesse Richards. 
2nd " A Tom Colt. H. F. Carter. 

2nd Glass — Two year olds. 
1st Premium. A Messenger Filley. H. G Du- 
lany. 

2nd Premium. A Messenger Filley. John P. 
Dulany. 



3cZ Class — Three year olds. 
1st Premium. A Messenger Filley. Hugh 

Rodgers. 
2nd Premium. A Messenger Colt. Robert 

Carter. 

JUDGES. 
John M. Harrison, Dr. John Rust, 
Zeph. Turner, Chase. 

quick draft. 

1st Class. — Year-lings. 

1st. Premium. Messenger Filley. Robert 

Carter. 
2nd Premium. Messenger Filley. J. T. Smith. 
2nd Class — Two year olds. 

1st Premium Samuel Ashby 

2nd Premium. Messenger Colt. Welby Carter. 

3rd Class — Three year olds. 
1st Premium. Messenger colt. H. McKinster. 
2nd Premium. Messenger Colt. Richard 
Brierly. 

JUDGES. 

Robert Beverly, Hugh Rodgers, 

Herod Thomas, Burwell Whiting, 

Jesse Richards, 

heavy draft. 
1st Class. — Yearlings. 
No premiums awarded, the colts not being 
entitled to any. 

2nd Class. — Two year olds. 
1st Premium. John Harrison. 
2nd Premium. Alexander Grayson. 
3rd! Class. — Three year olds. 
1st. Premium. Cobham Colt. R. H. Dulany. 
2nd Premium. Isaac Harrison. 

We understand from the friend, who was 
kind enough to furnish us the memoranda from 
which the above report was compiled, that the 
colts were remarkably fine, except the year- 
lings, which were not in as good. condition as 
last year, a fact which the dreadful weather of 
last winter may explain. 

The same officers were re-elected for the en- 
suing year. •. 

In conclusion we would respectfully suggest 
to those gentlemen, 1st, that they hold their 
show a little earlier— say, on the first of June. 
Any man can get a colt into pretty fair order 



510 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



on bl ue grass and clover. But it takes some 
little skill and care to bring him into the ring 
in good condition by the first of June. It will 
stimulate breeders to take more care of their 
colts ; and it will give them the whole summer 
and fall to grow in. Another benefit of the 
change in our opinion is, that it would allow 
the Editor of the Southern Planter to attend, 
which, under the present arrangement, that 
worthy gentleman cannot do, seeing that he is 
always cutting wheat about the fifteenth of 
June, and has made it a rule all his life never 
to leave the plantation whilst that work was 
going on. 

2nd. That they offer a premium to best and 
second best saddle horses, raised or gaited by 
a member of the Club. 



Deferred Articles. 

Several communications came to hana* too 
late for this No., and will appear in the next. 
Our friends will please send in their favours 
as early in the month as possible. 



Jgigp^ " See advertisement of Lindsey's Force 
Pump." 



For the Southern Planter. 

Roll on the Ball ! 

TILLERS OP THE EARTH, TAKE HEED ! ! 

Peruvian, Colombian, Mexican, and other Gu- 
anos excelled, and all Artificial Fertilizers 
perfectly annihilated by Fair Mixture's 

CoRNUCOPIAN OR CONGLOBATED SUCCEDANEUM-! 

The subscriber feels that he must suppress 
his enthusiasm. The agricultural public, so 
often imposed upon by ignorant or mercenary 
compounders, is not yet ready to echo that 
shout of Eureka with which he hails every 
barrel of his Succedaneum. He must be 
calm, and content himself for the present with 
a simple recital of the most astonishing facts 
and results. 

After many years of silent sympathy and 
sorrow for the much maltreated farmers and 
planters of our beloved Union, the subscriber 
determined to advance to the rescue, for their 
benefit exclusively ; and asking nothing for 
himself, but the consciousness that he had 
given a more smiling landscape and richer har- 
vest to his country. 

He paused for a moment to ask himself 
what are the wants of American agriculture ? 
The answer was obvious. Away with that 
narrow, sectional, miserable policy, which 
would teach each man to study the wants of 



his own particular farm or soil. We want 
a fertilizer for a continent, — something that 
has " the odour of nationality ;" that will in- 
duce vegetation to spring forward (if the fig- 
ure may be pardoned) in the sunlight of pat- 
riotism, and in the stealthy increments of 
its growth, keep time to the music of the 
Union. 

We want a light, portable, concentrated ma- 
nure. In this fast age, it is now generally 
conceded, that none but old fogies are slow 
enough to use the domestic manures of a farm. 
Lands must be improved by telegraph as it 
were. Guano has quickened the apprehen- 
sions of men, as it has stimulated the jaded 
powers of the soil. But guano is evanescent 
in its character, dissipating its strength in 
vegetative extravagance, and leaving no wreck, 
except of fortune, behind. Its traffic, too, is an 
odious monopoly in the hands of foreigners, 
thus depriving native Americans of their jus 
right to make fortunes out of their fellow-citi 
zens. Besides all this, the supply is precari 
ous,. as the best received opinion is, that the 
large deposit on the Chincha Islands, was the 
natural but transient result of a diarrhetic ep- 
idemic among the birds of the Pacific, which 
has long since ceased. A substitute must be 
found. This is poorly supplied in the so-called 
Phosphatic Guanos, whose results and appear- 
ance would indicate, that they were more in- 
timate with Cape Charles than the Gulf of 
Mexico. And, moreover, the subscriber can- 
not believe it was ever intended that any na- 
tion should be forced to bring its sources of 
fertility from foreign soils. 

Where, then, is this Succedaneum ? Why, 
scattered at our feet, not exactly " like flow- 
ers," as the poet remarks, but crushed, des- 
pised, — nay, almost loathed by unfeeling and 
unreflecting men. " Follow nature/' said Col- 
onel Benton ; " study the grades of nature's 
engineer, the buffalo, if you would have good 
roads ;" and in the same spirit, the subscriber 
would say to the farmer, study the habits of 
that humble insect which has also afforded the 
great Missourian a striking illustration. AVe 
forbear to give that contemptuous appellation 
by which this industrious scavenger has here- 
tofore been known. It will readily be recog- 
nized when we remark, that it is the same 
which, (as Fluellen says of Fortune,) "has 
its feet ever upon a spherical ball, which 
rolls, rolls, rolls." We now deem it proper 
to reinvest this despised insect with its more 
appropriate and classical title of Scarabcc- 
us Stercorarius, (order — Coleoptero — ovbiculi- 
fera.) If, as the subscriber thinks, it be des- 
tined to work an entire revolution in agri- 
culture, fill up all the great reservoirs of 
grain, maintain happy millions at home, and 
feed famishing millions abroad, there would 
seem to be a peculiar propriety in its adoption 
as a national emblem, as the Athenians of 
old wore a golden grasshopper for a cogni- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



511 



zance. Thus, this despised insect which, till 
now, has only called forth a passing jest at 
its wonderful power of retro-calcitration, will 
come to he associated with the idea of na- 
tional fertility and unbounded production. 

This, then, is the basis of the Cornucopian. 
Nature has its secrets, the subscriber has none. 
But let no farmer delude himself with the 
idea, that he can now prepare this Succedane- 
um for himself. The Scarabceus, enterprizing 
and migratory in its nature, has wandered 
over every variety of soil, has selected the 
quintessence of all fertilities, is rich in the 
phosphates, and redolent of ammonia — but 
the exact proportions in which it should be 
mixed with other materials, to fix its ammonia, 
graduate its strength, give instantaneous ac- 
tion, and yet durability — these are formulae 
which the subscriber has obtained with much 
labour and outlay, and must remain secret un- 
til he is reimbursed, and then he will gladly, 
proudly, make them known to his brother 
farmers. For the present, he deems it suffi- 
cient to state, that he warrants (legally, mor- 
ally, and agriculturally,) that every bushel of 
the Conglobated Succedaneum shall contain at 
least four of the Scaraboei, with argosies at- 
tached, and defies the strictest scrutiny and 
analysis to detect a smaller proportion. 

The Cornucopian is adapted to all soils, and 
to the production of all plants. It should 
be used liberally, for there is not the slightest 
danger that, like guano, it will over-stimulate 
the soil. The subscriber would caution the 
agricultural public, that they must not be dis- 
appointed if it fails to show any marked re- 
sults for some time. This is what the sub- 
scriber desires. Avoiding evanescence, he has 
sought to graduate its powers in exact pro- 
portion to the wants of the crop. Lands in 
the neighborhood of the factory sell for five 
dollars advance on the average rates, if it 
is proved that they have been treated with 
Cornucopian. Farmers should, therefore, con- 
tinue to apply it from year to year, without 
reference to results, assured as they may be, 
that they are enriching their children, whilst 
the patriot will be elevated by the thought 
that he is fertilizing for the untold generations 
of his country. 

In this connection the subscriber begs leave 
to say, that he is now compounding a fertilizer, 
(of which more hereafter) from the "Seventeen 
Years' Locust," which he thinks will keep up 
the soil during the interval of their seclusion. 

In conclusion the subscriber offers, in proof 
of the virtues of the Cornucopian, the follow- 
ing certificates from eminent agriculturists ; 
and the accurate analysis of the distinguished 
chemist, Dr. Litmus Precipitate, whose close 
investigations make him a rival of the Nan- 
tucket Captain, and enable him in the darkest 
night to tell his exact whereabouts by the odor 
of the soil beneath his feet. 



Sulphurous Canopy, April 1st, 1857- 
F. Mixture, Esq : 

Dear Sir : — The chemical examination of 
the " Cornucopian" is highly satisfactory. It 
has at least two per cent of matter soluble in 
water. There is a slight -trace of phosphate of 
lime, and a decided suspicion of potential ammo- 
nia. I AM SURE IT WILL NOT INJURE PLANTS. I 

was particularly struck Avith what you call its 
graduated power. Tried by the usual tests, it was 
now an acid and then an alkali — at one moment 
it absorbed oxygen, and at the next evolved 
carbonic acid. It amounts almost to an organ- 
ism, receiving constituents in their normal 
condition and returning them in a nascent 
state. I deem it unnecessary to give a more 
accurate quantitative or qualitative analysis, as 
there are many other constituents whose value 
the public would not appreciate — but have no 
hesitation in saying that, if you continue to 
manufacture this article equal to the sample sent, 
you will win and wear the title of benefactor 
of your country. 

Chemically Yours, 

Litmus Precipitate. 

P. S. — I am prepared (please say to your 
customers) to give full and accurate analyses 
of soil at $10 for each sample. 

Certificates from practical farmers. 

Pine Thicket, June, 1857. 
F. Mixture, Esq: 

Dear Sir : — I am delighted with the Cornu- 
copian. At first was disappointed, but recol- 
lected what you said about "graduated power," 
and "meeting each exigency as it occurred," 
and found it fully verified. 

Tried it on a roasting-ear patch. One ear 
came out after another till there were seven- 
teen on a stalk each ripening just in time for 
table use. In another field, (being short of 
horse feed) put a handful to the hill — product, 
twenty-two ears on a stalk, and all hard on the 
4th of July, two days after the silk appeared. 
Beats Peruvian Guano to death ! Shall want 
40 tons next fall. John Swietwitness. 

Sassafras Wilderness. 
Tried your new manure (can't recollect the 
name) and think it has more sense than nine 
men out of ten. At first thought it was a hum- 
bug — neighbors laughed and said the F. in 
your name stood for Fraudulent. My turn 
came next. Other people's wheat grew finely 
in early spring — mine stood still. Theirs 
killed by a late frost — mine put out then and 
made a fine crop. You ought to have two 
agents here. William Sweareast. 

Briery, 1857. 
Greatest manure for tobacco I ever saw: 
Plants stood without any season, and did'nt re- 



512 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



quire topping, or -worming, and very little 
work. I think I shall make three thousand 
pounds to the acre. John Halifax. 

Omnis Gallia, Virginia. 

We shall want all the " Cornucopian you can 
make between this and wheat seeding. Bought 
land last spring at $4 — could sell now at $40. 
Ten barrel crop growing on land that was in 
gullies last winter. 

I enclose a note for $700, which I will thank 
you to have discounted, and purchase me two 
Reapers of the latest fashion, two Drills and a 
Separator. Those I bought last year are in 
fragments. J. Quilibet. 

P. S. — My wife wants a new garden plough, 
a Thermometer Churn, a Washing Machine 
and a Flower Rake. 

The. subscriber deems it due to candor to 
give the only unfavorable report he has re- 
ceived. In justice to himself he calls attention 
to the circumstances under which the failure 
occurred. It is from the Hon. Pompous Pro- 
lix, as well known in the agricultural as the 
political world. 

Tusculum, Oct. 1856. 
F. Mixture, Esq: 

Dear Sir : — I have the honor to report that 
a curious combination of circumstances, and a 
melancholy series of disasters, have united to con- 
found all my experiments with your (I am very 
sure) valuable compound. You will remember 
that when I was in Washington two years ago, 
I ordered a small quantity of the " Cornuco- 
pian" and instructed my manager to apply it. 
This he tells me he did, but forgot the exact 
places of application ; saw no difference, and 
thought unfavorablyof the fertilizer. 

I determined to satisfy myself this spring, 
and accordingly selected three different thea- 
tres for experiment — two on corn and one on 
oats. The first row of corn (both laid off accu- 
rately 10 yards, 2 feet and 7£ inches in 
length.) was in an old road which became so 
hard in consequence of drought that I was 
unable to get a plough in it — the second row 
looked well, but was washed down and covered 
by a freshet. The oats were destroyed by my 
cattle during my attendance at a mass meeting 
in County, (look out for large majori- 
ties for our party in that quarter.) 

It is fair to infer that under more auspicious 
circumstances the results would have been 
very different. 

I renew the assurances of my distinguished 
consideration. P. Prolix. 

P. S. — My fine horse, Pedigree, has been 
lame for two months. I have tried poultices in 
vain — what should be done ? P. P. 

With these flattering testimonials the sub- 
scriber turns confidently to his brother farmers, 
secure in the consciousness that he cannot be 



classed with that host of ignorant and merce- 
nary vendors now preying upon the vitals of 
the community. 

The Cornucopian will be put up in second 
hand barrels or in old guano bags, warranted 
not to burst [if handled very tenderly.} None 
genuine but those stencilled in two colors 
(black and blue) " F. M.'s Cornucopian," or 
Conglobated Succedaneum." 

Agencies published shortly. 

F. Mixture. 

Price per Ton of 1500 pounds $47 50. 

_ « » ■ ■ » 

Diseases in Animals. 

Dr. Richardson states that he has seen 
pigs with croup, small-pox, measles, and 
plague. Dr. Furlong of Antigua states, 
on the authority of a letter from the wife 
of one of the first physicians in Trinidad, 
that when cholera was epidemic in that 
island, monkeys, wild and domesticated, 
died in great numbers from the disease. 
Travellers found them dead in the woods, 
in every stage of the most malignant 
cholera. He says, moreover, that they 
suffered equally from small-pox when it 
devastated the island, and that there was 
the same evidence of contagion amongst 
the monkeys in the case of cholera as in 
that of small-pox. Dr. Laroche, in his 
work " On Yellow Fever," states that the 
effect of the epidemic constitution of the 
atmosphere, during the prevalence of yel- 
low fever in New Orleans and elsewhere, 
were most striking. 

" Early in June, 1805, cats began to 
droop and die ; dogs, also, were severely 
and fatally affected. Next year cats were 
again affected, as well as rats. Many of 
the cats died numb and torpid, while others 
were seized with delirium and puking. 
Even fish and oysters are known at times 
to participate in the same calamity. In 
1798 flies were found dead in great num- 
bers in the unhealthy parts of the city. 
At Gibraltar, in addition to dogs and mon- 
keys, a goatherd lost a great part of his 
flock, and almost the whole ceased to give 
milk. At New Orleans in 1833, there was 
much sickness amongst horses, cattle, and 
swine." Again, " in 1819, they died with 
rotten tongues, and sheep and hogs with 
their hoofs dropping off, and calves with 
rotten ears." The " braxey" of sheep in 
Scotland is analagous to the affection last 
described. During the cholera at Greno- 
ble, not a swallow was to be seen ; but 
these birds reappeared as the epidemic 
disappeared. [Lancet.